Beta more or less is our "separate repository." In reality our end users shouldn't be in Beta. In the past modules have been known to get stuck in Beta for uncertain reasons. I'd take a guess the reasons involve some mixture of the following: 1) Very few people knowing exactly why a module was Beta - was it new? Was a bug fixed? Were new features added? Therefore there was little direction for the testers to take. 2) Most of our list, who are largely either developers or module creators to begin with, got in the habit of using the Beta repository while waiting, so we were not very vocal about goading people to release updated versions. And since we are most of the voices here and the voices of users tended not to know about the Beta, there was little incentive to move forward. 3) Often modules come in large dumps, like you're mentioning, and frankly I don't have the time or talents to learn 43 languages AND read through the Bible 43 times to test. And if we don't know anyone who does know that language, what are we to do while waiting for a "Hey, I read through that and it seemed well put together, let's publish it." 4) For a long time only Chris Little had rights to move from one repository to the other. This might still be the case. If so, only one person to process 109 modules, plus be responsible for creating them from source materials and probably fix the reported bugs is a massive undertaking. However, due to the exceedingly high standards for modules in CrossWire's repositories, very few other people would have Chris' attention to detail.
If I go much farther I probably will end up getting into the numerous objections where some people prefer the "release early, release often" method and others prefer the "wait until it's perfect" method. CW repos tend to wait longer until release while Karl tends to do the quick iteration approach. As a result, using "Beta" became mainstream as a user would report "My module is broken in such-and-such a passage" and they would be told to try the version in Beta and they would say "All better, thanks." Thus a bad habit of pointing users to testing material led to "Beta" becoming used in production - observe the KJV 2.4 in Beta which nearly everyone ueses while 2.3 continues on in the "released" stream complete with all of its quirks and invalid OSIS from the old importer. --Greg On Thu, Dec 9, 2010 at 3:16 PM, David Haslam <dfh...@googlemail.com> wrote: > > The 43 http://crosswire.org/wiki/WBTI_Bible_discussion modules we were > given a long time ago do rather swamp the module manager when > http://crosswire.org/wiki/Modules_in_the_beta_repository CrossWire Beta is > selected. > > This makes it hard to see the wood for the trees. Ploughing past all those > unusual language names is quite a chore. > > 43 / 109 is almost 40% of the beta repo. > > I suspect that few users would wish to install any of these, unless they > happen to be involved in ministry in Central America or the Caribbean > region. Thus they have a highly specialized focus. > > Would it not be a good idea to have these in a separate repository? > > What do others think? > > David > -- > View this message in context: > http://sword-dev.350566.n4.nabble.com/WBTI-BL-modules-in-CrossWire-Beta-tp3081010p3081010.html > Sent from the SWORD Dev mailing list archive at Nabble.com. > > _______________________________________________ > sword-devel mailing list: sword-devel@crosswire.org > http://www.crosswire.org/mailman/listinfo/sword-devel > Instructions to unsubscribe/change your settings at above page > _______________________________________________ sword-devel mailing list: sword-devel@crosswire.org http://www.crosswire.org/mailman/listinfo/sword-devel Instructions to unsubscribe/change your settings at above page
