Doug,
I think that andreas is right. If we could have shorter and denser release cycles this would be good (if we can sustain it :)).
Stef
Hi,
Well, if the other Guides think this sounds reasonable - and the VM port maintainers, then why not. We could instead focus on changing the development process during these months.
This sounds generally reasonable to me. The one modification I'd make is that we should still allow the usual fixes and small enhancements/refactorings to be harvested from the BFAV during this release. (There is already a backlog of approved items from 3.7beta.)
That was implicit in saying let's go to beta quickly - beta is for fixes and some other small enhancements or refactorings won't hurt, I think. The point would be to get past alpha fairly quickly.
However, we would not add any major enhancements (other than m17n) which have been discussed, such as splitting out a bunch of packages, major compiler changes, RegExp, Squat, etc. Those could be lined up for the following release.
Correct. And by closing alpha early and getting to a release fairly quickly we'd make sure that these changes aren't delayed forever. That's why I was looking at the 2 months range - we basically have this stuff lined up to go (there is even a prototype alpha already which will be the Squeakland plugin image) so let's fold it in, wrap it up, declare victory for now, and put it the new stuff afterwards.
Cheers,
- Andreas