IMHO ooRexx 5.0 has long reached release quality (stabler than 4.2, more features, faster), but has not been officially released for years.
This has negative effects on ooRexx itself in various fields. One area is current deployments of ooRexx 4.1 or 4.2 in the marketplace where businesses and organizations only are allowed to use released software and not beta-dubbed software. Over time the criticism that ooRexx 4.1 or 4.2 are totally outdated (by people trying to replace ooRexx with other languages) get heard and get replaced by better known and newer versions of other scripting languages like Python, Ruby and the like, leaving the Rexx and ooRexx programmers helplessly left behind. Another area is trying to publish articles to scientific conferences using ooRexx as the programming language to demonstrate something: currently, I have to revise an article (not accepted yet) and have to deal with the following remark: "/... I find that the general topic is relevant, but that the study approach to the topic may not be so. One reason is the scripting language chosen, ooRexx. This is a generally unknown and not actively maintained programming language, last updated in 2014 which, in my opinion, does not have current relevance for the software development community. .../". It does not matter that trunk is alive and ooRexx 5.0 beta is stabler, has more - and great - features etc. compared to the seven year old ooRexx 4.2, which is the latest official release of ooRexx. The official release is the only thing that counts! (Therefore it would be psychologically important to have at least yearly releases, even if they are microreleases.) An official release of ooRexx 5.0 has been much more important than the developers seem to have realized so far. So please start the process of releasing ooRexx 5.0 now! ---rony
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