Re: [Plplot-devel] 5.9.7 release timing
On 2010-09-24 12:45-0400 Hazen Babcock wrote: > Alan W. Irwin wrote: >> [...]Is the 5.9.7 development release still on for next >> weekend? > > Yep, assuming that there are no objections. Hi Hazen: For those who might be doing some last-minute documentation (probably not me since I hope to finish the pllegend docbook documentation today) what day this weekend and what approximate time of day do you plan to start the release process? I was about to give you a shopping list of on-going development that would justify making the next release cycle our normal longer development cycle. For example, we need to work on plcolorbar to complement pllegend. Also, the misaligned legend results for example 26 show a lot of work needs to be done so that plstrl gives the correct string-size results for unicode-aware device drivers. However, when I checked records, it turns out our last stable release (5.8.0) was almost three years ago! Thus, we have been putting off the release of 5.10.0 for much too long a time (probably mostly due to my requests for more development release cycles). But, of course, on-going development can always be used to put off stable releases so if we don't do a stable release soon, we may never do so. Furthermore, I think we could benefit from a short stable release cycle where we concentrated exclusively on testing, bug fixing, API propagation, and documentation and where the developers made a commitment not to commit any new core development work to svn trunk during that short cycle. The first obvious question, Hazen, concerning this possibility is whether or not you can commit to a short release cycle (say with a release of 5.10.0 two or three weeks from the release of 5.9.7 this weekend)? Assuming that short time scale is possible for the next release, what do the other developers here think about this possibility? Would you be against it (because you have a lot you want to develop and waiting through a stable release cycle disrupts your plans); go along with it without participating because of other time-commitments during the next few weeks (obviously no shame is attached to that because of the extremely short notice); or would you be for it implying you could contribute some testing, bug fixing, etc., help during that time? I would be for it since I could use a week or two to properly test PLplot using MinGW under wine, and I hope others would be willing to participate as well (say by propagating pllegend to various languages and updating examples 4 and 26 in those languages earlier in the release cycle and/or running scripts/comprehensive_test.sh for their platform and reporting the results on our Wiki later in the release cycle). Note the above proposed moratorium on _core_ development (i.e., changes to libplplotd) during this short release cycle does not apply to language changes. For example, I am aware from off-list discussions with Jerry that he has some Ada changes planned, and I think those would be fine so long as he completed them early in the release cycle so that those changes got full testing later in the cycle. Alan __ Alan W. Irwin Astronomical research affiliation with Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Victoria (astrowww.phys.uvic.ca). Programming affiliations with the FreeEOS equation-of-state implementation for stellar interiors (freeeos.sf.net); PLplot scientific plotting software package (plplot.org); the libLASi project (unifont.org/lasi); the Loads of Linux Links project (loll.sf.net); and the Linux Brochure Project (lbproject.sf.net). __ Linux-powered Science __ -- Start uncovering the many advantages of virtual appliances and start using them to simplify application deployment and accelerate your shift to cloud computing. http://p.sf.net/sfu/novell-sfdev2dev ___ Plplot-devel mailing list Plplot-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/plplot-devel
Re: [Plplot-devel] Volunteer requested to implement legend-drawing capability for the PLplot core library.
To Hez and Andrew: I have just assigned the "const" qualifier to all array arguments of pllegend. I think this is the right thing to do, and it seems to work fine, but neither of you mentioned this possibility when reviewing the pllegend API, and I am inexperienced with the "const" nuances. Furthermore, I notice with other PLplot functions many (but not all) array arguments do not have the "const" qualifier. So if there are downsides please let me know before the release so I can change it back. If the decision is pro "const", should we be using this qualifier for most of the array arguments to PLplot functions? Of course, that is a large backwards-incompatible API change so we would have to pick our moment when we wanted to do that change. Alan __ Alan W. Irwin Astronomical research affiliation with Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Victoria (astrowww.phys.uvic.ca). Programming affiliations with the FreeEOS equation-of-state implementation for stellar interiors (freeeos.sf.net); PLplot scientific plotting software package (plplot.org); the libLASi project (unifont.org/lasi); the Loads of Linux Links project (loll.sf.net); and the Linux Brochure Project (lbproject.sf.net). __ Linux-powered Science __ -- Start uncovering the many advantages of virtual appliances and start using them to simplify application deployment and accelerate your shift to cloud computing. http://p.sf.net/sfu/novell-sfdev2dev ___ Plplot-devel mailing list Plplot-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/plplot-devel
Re: [Plplot-devel] 5.9.7 release timing
Alan W. Irwin wrote: > On 2010-09-24 12:45-0400 Hazen Babcock wrote: > >> Alan W. Irwin wrote: >>> [...]Is the 5.9.7 development release still on for next >>> weekend? >> >> Yep, assuming that there are no objections. > > Hi Hazen: > > For those who might be doing some last-minute documentation (probably > not me since I hope to finish the pllegend docbook documentation > today) what day this weekend and what approximate time of day do you > plan to start the release process? I'm planning on doing this tomorrow (Saturday, October 2nd) morning (EST), but see discussion below. > I was about to give you a shopping list of on-going development that > would justify making the next release cycle our normal longer > development cycle. For example, we need to work on plcolorbar to > complement pllegend. Also, the misaligned legend results for example > 26 show a lot of work needs to be done so that plstrl gives the > correct string-size results for unicode-aware device drivers. > > However, when I checked records, it turns out our last stable release > (5.8.0) was almost three years ago! Thus, we have been putting off > the release of 5.10.0 for much too long a time (probably mostly due to > my requests for more development release cycles). But, of course, > on-going development can always be used to put off stable releases so > if we don't do a stable release soon, we may never do so. Furthermore, > I think we could benefit from a short stable release cycle where we > concentrated exclusively on testing, bug fixing, API propagation, and > documentation and where the developers made a commitment not to commit > any new core development work to svn trunk during that short cycle. > > The first obvious question, Hazen, concerning this possibility is > whether or not you can commit to a short release cycle (say with a > release of 5.10.0 two or three weeks from the release of 5.9.7 this > weekend)? That would probably be possible, but.. > Assuming that short time scale is possible for the next release, what > do the other developers here think about this possibility? Would you > be against it (because you have a lot you want to develop and waiting > through a stable release cycle disrupts your plans); go along with it > without participating because of other time-commitments during the > next few weeks (obviously no shame is attached to that because of the > extremely short notice); or would you be for it implying you could > contribute some testing, bug fixing, etc., help during that time? I am against it, unless we can get pllegend (and plsmema) propogated to all the languages before then (as you mentioned below). Also I feel that the pllegend API should be stable, and I don't have the sense that it is right now. At the rate these things seem to happen I would guess this will take a month or more. Then there is the question of whether we'd like one more development release to make sure we are comfortable with pllegend prior to a stable release. I'd propose either: (1) Another dev release 1-2 months after 5.9.7, followed shortly there after by 5.10.0. (2) Hold off on 5.9.7 for another 1-2 months. In either case we would attempt to restrict our activities between the dev release and the stable release as you suggest. > I would be for it since I could use a week or two to properly test > PLplot using MinGW under wine, and I hope others would be willing to > participate as well (say by propagating pllegend to various languages > and updating examples 4 and 26 in those languages earlier in the > release cycle and/or running scripts/comprehensive_test.sh for their > platform and reporting the results on our Wiki later in the release > cycle). -Hazen -- Start uncovering the many advantages of virtual appliances and start using them to simplify application deployment and accelerate your shift to cloud computing. http://p.sf.net/sfu/novell-sfdev2dev ___ Plplot-devel mailing list Plplot-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/plplot-devel
Re: [Plplot-devel] 5.9.7 release timing
On Oct 1, 2010, at 7:12 PM, Hazen Babcock wrote: > Alan W. Irwin wrote: >> On 2010-09-24 12:45-0400 Hazen Babcock wrote: >> >>> Alan W. Irwin wrote: [...]Is the 5.9.7 development release still on for next weekend? >>> >>> Yep, assuming that there are no objections. >> >> Hi Hazen: >> >> For those who might be doing some last-minute documentation (probably >> not me since I hope to finish the pllegend docbook documentation >> today) what day this weekend and what approximate time of day do you >> plan to start the release process? > > I'm planning on doing this tomorrow (Saturday, October 2nd) morning > (EST), but see discussion below. Sorry about this, but Sunday now morning looks like it will work better for me. >> Assuming that short time scale is possible for the next release, what >> do the other developers here think about this possibility? Would you >> be against it (because you have a lot you want to develop and waiting >> through a stable release cycle disrupts your plans); go along with it >> without participating because of other time-commitments during the >> next few weeks (obviously no shame is attached to that because of the >> extremely short notice); or would you be for it implying you could >> contribute some testing, bug fixing, etc., help during that time? > > I am against it, unless we can get pllegend (and plsmema) > propogated to > all the languages before then (as you mentioned below). Also I feel > that > the pllegend API should be stable, and I don't have the sense that > it is > right now. At the rate these things seem to happen I would guess this > will take a month or more. Then there is the question of whether we'd > like one more development release to make sure we are comfortable with > pllegend prior to a stable release. We might also need to propogate all the transform stuff that was added earlier this summer? -Hazen -- Start uncovering the many advantages of virtual appliances and start using them to simplify application deployment and accelerate your shift to cloud computing. http://p.sf.net/sfu/novell-sfdev2dev ___ Plplot-devel mailing list Plplot-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/plplot-devel
Re: [Plplot-devel] 5.9.7 release timing
On 2010-10-01 19:12-0400 Hazen Babcock wrote: >> Assuming that short time scale is possible for the next release, what >> do the other developers here think about this possibility? Would you >> be against it (because you have a lot you want to develop and waiting >> through a stable release cycle disrupts your plans); go along with it >> without participating because of other time-commitments during the >> next few weeks (obviously no shame is attached to that because of the >> extremely short notice); or would you be for it implying you could >> contribute some testing, bug fixing, etc., help during that time? > > I am against it, unless we can get pllegend (and plsmema) propogated to all > the languages before then (as you mentioned below). Also I feel that the > pllegend API should be stable, and I don't have the sense that it is right > now. At the rate these things seem to happen I would guess this will take a > month or more. Then there is the question of whether we'd like one more > development release to make sure we are comfortable with pllegend prior to a > stable release. > > I'd propose either: > > (1) Another dev release 1-2 months after 5.9.7, followed shortly there after > by 5.10.0. Hi Hazen: Thanks for your thoughts on this issue. (1) is actually fine with me. Your point about how long it will take to propagate pllegend is a good one, and I do have a lot of other things I would like to work on as well. Finally, even though it appears our next release cycle will be a developmental one, I still encourage developers to do some activities associated with a stable release cycle as well such as testing, bug fixing, and documentation since that should help us to shorten the subsequent stable release cycle. > (2) Hold off on 5.9.7 for another 1-2 months. Definitely not (2). So please go ahead on Sunday (anticipating your next post) with the release of 5.9.7. Alan __ Alan W. Irwin Astronomical research affiliation with Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Victoria (astrowww.phys.uvic.ca). Programming affiliations with the FreeEOS equation-of-state implementation for stellar interiors (freeeos.sf.net); PLplot scientific plotting software package (plplot.org); the libLASi project (unifont.org/lasi); the Loads of Linux Links project (loll.sf.net); and the Linux Brochure Project (lbproject.sf.net). __ Linux-powered Science __ -- Start uncovering the many advantages of virtual appliances and start using them to simplify application deployment and accelerate your shift to cloud computing. http://p.sf.net/sfu/novell-sfdev2dev ___ Plplot-devel mailing list Plplot-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/plplot-devel
