Re: [Pharo-dev] A thought about backporting

[btc]

Camillo Bruni wrote: On 2013-11-15, at 14:26, Stephan Eggermont <step...@stack.nl> wrote: btc wrote: OMG! I only just noticed on the "RELEASE" page [1] the linked file "Pharo2.0-win.zip" [3] >has a last-modified-date of 2013-11-13. What crack [2] are you smoking? A "released" >file with a name like "Pharo2.0-win.zip" should NEVER change its contents. NEVER! It >SHOULD always remain the same - always - to the end of time! Backports are really >important but they should be labelled as a new version "release" or just as "latest" if >regularly uploaded from the CI. No. Releases on the website are for humans, not for automation. They should work and have all the latest backported bugfixes. Fixed versions for automation and sysadmins have build numbers. We have this covered with files.pharo.org I agree My apologies for how badly that poured out of me.  Reading it after a sleep on the couch I'm a bit embarrassed.  I'll restate in a more considered way. First, this doesn't affect me personally because I know about files.pharo.org and I use PharoLauncher.  I was thinking more of newcomers and sysadmins (with whom I empathize with from a past work-life.)  I understand your point contrasting humans and automation, and maybe I'm being pedantic, but I consider "Pharo2.0-win.zip" to be a fixed version.  Its "fixed" version is "2.0".  The "point-zero" makes it a fixed version.   Right above it even says "released on Monday, March 18th 2013" - which turns out to be not true for that file.   If you don't want the web site version to be a fixed version, then a better name would be Pharo2-latest-win.zip, or even just Pharo2-win.zip. However fixed versions are also good for humans.  Here is a scenario: Six months ago at home Alice downloaded Pharo - went to the web site, clicked on menu Download > Release 2.0 then downloaded Installer > Pharo 2.0-win.zip. While learning Pharo she made a simple-application.  Today at work her colleague Bob gets interested in trying out Pharo, so they download the same release as Alice did so that Bob can try out her simple-application.  As before - they go to the web site, click on menu Download > Release 2.0 then download Installer > Pharo 2.0-win.zip.   Bob loads Alice's simple-application but it doesn't work.  They are frustrated they do not understand why.  Alice and Bob are both discouraged and move on, but whenever Pharo comes up in conversation they relate their experience.  Now that scenario is obviously contrived to make a point, and the real risk of such negative experience may be low, but I it shows why fixed versions are useful to humans, not just sysadmin automation.  However my point is not actually whether or not there are fixed versions available from the web site. My point is that is "looks" like a fixed version when it is not.  In contrast, below under Custom Downloads > Virtual Machines it explicitly says "These links always point to the latest released Virtual machines" and there are no version numbers in the filename. That is good.  Also under Custom Downloads > Image the filename is "Pharo-Image-2.0-latest.zip".  That is good.  My concern was with the one that looks like a fixed released but is not.  However in the big scheme of things Pharo is doing, this really is only a small thing and I should not have overreacted - and I've again just said more on it again than I meant to, so I'll leave it there. cheers -ben