Hi all, For the reasons Andrew mentioned, I think a split in the library should happen as late as possible. While everyone means well, I'm dubious that bugs and features would be "back applied" to older versions. In my experience using mlib_devel_10_1 with both 10.1 and 11.? on Windows and Linux respectively is that it's compatible on the level that matters. That is to say if I hit 'run xps', it works. There maybe extraneous warning messages cropping up, but I don't think that's reason enough to split. In the same vein as major software revisions, I think the next library split should happen when some major change in the library must occur either to accommodate new hardware (i.e. Virtex-6 development for ROACH II) or major software change (i.e. the lack of OPB buses used in 12.1 as mentioned by David George a few days ago or another revision change in Xilinx's blockset library). Otherwise the boundaries of what version is used with what hardware becomes fuzzy and confusing for those who are starting out. When it is deemed that a split is necessary, then mlib_devel_10_1 should be in a clean, polished state. Maybe we even drop the "devel" from the name.
Cheers, Laura On Wed, May 19, 2010 at 2:34 PM, David MacMahon <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi, Andrew and John, > > On May 19, 2010, at 0:02 , Andrew Martens wrote: > >> It may be time to copy our libraries to an mlib_devel_11_1 revision and >> continue from there. ROACH2 uses Virtex6 and the 10.x and earlier tools do >> not support it. Disadvantages are that a lot of library maintainers will be >> working in mlib_devel_11_1 and bug fixes, changes etc may not make it back >> into mlib_devel_10_1. It worked reasonably well with the move from >> mlib_devel_7_1 to mlib_devel_10_1 though so it probably wouldn't be a >> problem. > > I think this would be a good idea. This is the first time (AFAIK) that the > chips CASPER supports include some that are mutually exclusive in terms of > tool versions (i.e. no system generator v2pro support after 10.1, no v6 > support before 11.1). > > On May 19, 2010, at 9:22 , John Ford wrote: > >> IMO, there has to be a conscious effort to maintain tools for each >> generation of hardware, at least to some point. I think that since 10.1 >> is the last version to support the Virtex-II Pro, it should be kept up to >> date and usable, at least for some time to come. > > I agree that ongoing support for the v2pro is very important! IMHO, this > means the 10.1 CASPER libraries should maintained going forward by > back-porting relevant bug fixes, but (IMHO) it does not necessarily mean > that every new gizmo added to the 11.1 (and future) CASPER libraries should > be back-ported to the 10.1 CASPER libraries. Likewise, bug fixes in the > 10.1 libraries should be forward-ported to the 11.1 (and future) CASPER > libraries, but some changes may not be relevant to the newer libraries. I > think this will end up with diverging libraries, but I suspect that the 10.1 > libraries are fairly stable now and won't change too much, especially as the > 10.1 user base inevitably shrinks over time. > > Does that sound reasonable? Can anyone think of an alternative approach > that would do better at keeping existing "legacy" users happy while not > impeding future development? > > Thanks, > Dave > > >
