I like the idea of having experimental features explicitly being called out
in the change log. In addition, would it make sense to mandate that
experimental features have a JIRA associated with them? Probably tag them
with a label, and we can have a dashboard with the experimental features.
This should be the responsibility of the shepherd/developer
introducing/maintaining the feature. The JIRA itself need not be an epic,
but a release place holder that can link to other epics/bugs. When the
feature graduates mark them closed and tag them as production ready (or
something more appropriate).

Will be easier for operators/users to file bugs against these features and
also track their progress. We already do this in some sense when we
introduce the feature. But once we release the feature (marked as
experimental) the JIRAs (epics) are usually closed and across releases the
features evolve into multiple epics and its hard to track the progress for
the uninitiated.

While change logs are pretty important, from an operators standpoint, I
feel having JIRAs will give a nice insights into the history of a feature
and give a clearer picture to developers and users alike in the community.

On Thu, Nov 3, 2016 at 2:48 PM, Alex Rukletsov <[email protected]> wrote:

> Every experimental feature graduating from experimental should be
> explicitly called out at the top of the log. We probably haven't been
> consistent in the past, but it should be easier for a release manager to
> remember when adjusting the list of still experimental features.
>
> On Wed, Nov 2, 2016 at 7:06 PM, Zhitao Li <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> > (speaking from both a contributor and user perspective)
> >
> > Definitely +1 for improve visibility of experimental features, and I
> think
> > the proposal is definitely helpful for people to read it.
> >
> > In terms of expectation management, one thing from the user perspective
> is
> > when an experimental feature will graduate into stable, because a
> > responsible user might hold-off actual (or full) adoption until that
> > happens, and they need to plan accordingly. Have a way to track what
> items
> > the owner considers necessary for a feature to become stable is quite
> > important in such a case (not everyone has the luxury to comb through
> JIRA
> > boards for contexts, or talk to the direct owner of the the feature).
> >
> > On Tue, Nov 1, 2016 at 5:28 PM, Alex Rukletsov <[email protected]>
> > wrote:
> >
> > > Folks,
> > >
> > > Additionally to the "known bugs" proposal in a parallel thread, we
> think
> > > that maintaining a list of still experimental features for each minor
> > > release will significantly help users
> > > to adjust their expectations.
> > >
> > > Our suggestion is to include a new section into the CHANGELOG called
> > > "Experimental Features" starting with the upcoming 1.1.0 release.
> > > Populating this section should be relatively easy: take the contents of
> > > this section from the previous minor release, remove features declared
> > > stable, and add new experimental features.
> > >
> > > With this change users will have a complete overview of experimental
> > > functionality per release, without searching the CHANGELOG for when and
> > > whether a certain feature became production-ready.
> > >
> > > What do you think?
> > >
> > > AlexR.
> > >
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > Cheers,
> >
> > Zhitao Li
> >
>



-- 
Avinash Sridharan, Mesosphere
+1 (323) 702 5245

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