[Squeakfoundation] 3.5 Release Date (was Re: A naive question about the speedoptimization of anthony)

[Doug Way]

Hi all.  According to the 3.5 plan, the original "First Fridays" final release
date for 3.5 was today, Friday the 4th.

I posted in "WeakArray bug" thread that I don't think we need to hold up the
3.5 release for a fix for that particular bug, since it's an old bug, we
haven't agreed on a fix, and even an agreed-upon fix would need some time for
testing.

However, there's also the issue of possibly adding the closure-compatible VM
additions.  I actually don't have a big problem with adding these in 3.5, if
the various VM folks agree that it's a good idea, since they can't really
affect anything else.  I am assuming there are no licensing issues with the VM
additions... they'd just be Squeak-L.  Let's hear some opinions from the
VM-interested folks on this.

The other issue is that we originally planned to have a 3.6 Release Plan ready
as part of the 3.5 final release.  We still have some work to do on that, so
in any case I think it might be a good idea to postpone the 3.5 release to
next Friday, the 11th.  This will give us some time to hash out a rough 3.6
plan (it doesn't have to be that detailed), and also time to decide whether to
include the closure VM additions.  I like the idea of still releasing it on a
Friday, too. :-)

I wouldn't normally be this cavalier about postponing a release date, but in
this case I think there isn't that much demand to see 3.5 right away, since it
doesn't have much new stuff and since 3.4 was released quite recently.  3.6
will probably be a different story.

Does this sound reasonable?

- Doug


-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: A naive question about the speed optimization of anthony
Date: Fri, 4 Apr 2003 00:58:08 -0500
From: Doug Way <dway at riskmetrics.com>
Reply-To: The general-purpose Squeak developers
list<squeak-dev at lists.squeakfoundation.org>
To: The general-purpose Squeak developers
list<squeak-dev at lists.squeakfoundation.org>


I understand that they're harmless changes also.  I would tend to just 
include them in 3.6alpha and not mess with 3.5gamma at this stage.  
There's not that much disadvantage to adding them in 3.6alpha... they 
could be added right away (since the 3.6alpha update stream is open), 
and the actual closure (non-VM) code wouldn't be added until later in 
3.6alpha anyway, if it is added.

Although if all of the VM maintainers think it is worth adding in 3.5, 
we could consider that.

- Doug Way


On Thursday, April 3, 2003, at 03:48 PM, Daniel Vainsencher wrote:

> Yeah, I see what you mean about it being quite harmless, so I don't 
> feel
> very strongly about it. I do want to make to advance this thing, but I
> don't want to push for something that adds (slight) risk to a release
> that I advocated be short only because it is relatively
> complication-free (ha, theories - see the weakness weaknes thread).
>
> So, I'll accept whatever other people decide, and it's really mostly up
> to Doug and the VM maintainers.
>
> Daniel
>
> Andreas Raab <andreas.raab at gmx.de> wrote:
>> Daniel,
>>
>>> Well, making the VMs "closure compatible" soon is a good thing.
>>>
>>> Changing gamma versions isn't.
>>
>> Well, it's your choice. I was just pointing out that the changes are
>> "harmless" in terms of actually affecting anything and therefore 
>> could be
>> considered for inclusion.
>>
>> Cheers,
>>   - Andreas
>>
>>>
>>> I withdraw from this discussion - I don't have anything more to add.
>>>
>>> Doug's call.
>>>
>>> Hmm, just thought about an alternative that might be better -
>>> add it to
>>> 3.6, and use 3.6 to make the 3.5 VMs. If that's the only
>>> difference (and
>>> 3.5 didn't contain a lot), it should be compatible anyway. But, 
>>> again,
>>> whatever you guys decide.
>>>
>>> Daniel
>>>
>>> Andreas Raab <andreas.raab at gmx.de> wrote:
>>>>> It'll be 3.6a (3.5 is now gamma),
>>>>
>>>> So what. We're effectively talking about five methods with
>>> no implication
>>>> whatsoever on any part of the VM or the image. Even if they
>>> were entirely
>>>> broken they'd affect nothing. If you want to move towards
>>> that direction
>>>> it's definitely worthwhile considering.
>>>>
>>>> Cheers,
>>>>   - Andreas
>>>