I'm glad I write really long emails. It gives me a chance to calm down as
I get further into the document. I haven't cut or reworded any of my
early comments because I still believe they need to be said.
On 7 Jan 2000, Lars Gullik Bjønnes wrote:
> I have put code that I think should make it possible to use lyx with
> modern istream, but I have also experienced dataloss when trying this
> outl Note that I have used a C++ lib in alpha state when doing this,
> so it might be perfect as it is, but be VERY careful, you might loose
> your documents...
And all this was added to the main trunk! Perhaps we/you should have
released 1.1.4 first since we'd only just finished fixing most of the
previous cluster of bugs. Or perhaps a branch might have been better?
Perhaps I shouldn't complain since you and JMarc are doing almost all the
work but the whole point of changing to the new development process was to
ensure that the main trunk was _always_ stable. Any new stuff was
supposed to be done in a branch and merged once proved pretty solid and
complete. Of course more bugs are likely to be found once any new feature
goes mainstream but if anyone can checkout the main trunk they can also
checkout a branch to help test it.
I suppose we are faced with the dilemma that we don't have many volunteer
testers so it's very easy to just force testing on everyone but it does
mean that we are back to stumbling over each others bugs/changes again
like in the old devel.
Maybe I'm overreacting since we are still in the transition stage between
1.0.4 and 1.1.x proper and the stream code is now one of those fundamental
changes planned for the transition. Just don't get too comfortable with
developing on the main trunk 'cos once the transition is over we really
do need to ensure that the trunk is always stable. Sure there will be
(short) settling-in periods when a new feature or other significant change
is folded in but even they should still be quite useable.
It occurs to me now that it might be a damn good idea to call 1.1.x the
transition stage and once the stream/string changes have settled down we
then release 1.2.0 which is then the start of the proper new
stable-development process. The three elements I have listed on my
LyX webpage for the transition are STL, automake/autoconf and directory
restructure. These are almost done or at least at a stage where we have a
better idea of what the final product will look like. To this I've just
added stream and string support. Anything else major for the transition
stage?
I don't consider gui-indep a part of the transition process. I'm
satisfied from my past experience that popups at least can be done without
any bad effect upon the rest of LyX. I have a couple of ideas I need to
write-up this weekend with regards improvements to my previous popup
independence work and also want to write a "HOWTO help with popup
independence" chapter for the gui-indep doc. If I get any of these done
this weekend I'll be happy, if I get all of them done this weekend it'll
be miracle.
> Also The solution I choose is not very nice...suggestions on better
> ways to do this is welcome.
I'll try to take a look this weekend while I'm rewriting the transition-PR
document (and guidelines for after the transition?).
In the meantime I await others' responses: flames or otherwise.
Allan. (ARRae)
