What I wrong last fall still mostly applies:
http://www.joyofsetup.com/2013/09/05/wix-v3-x-the-new-stable-wix-plan/
Big picture goal: Don't make users wait 18 to 24 months for platform
support, fixes, and features -- in that order. Simultaneously, take
advantage of the move to Outercurve and encourage contributors to code
up the features they've been wanting -- because that's how all newbies
are enticed to the WiX dark side. (I kinda like perusing the bug
database to pick out something fun to work on, but I'm known to be odd
in that and other ways.)
I always figured we'd have a downward slope on the scope of v3.x
releases, the mirror image of the uptake of v4.x. Starting by ramping
down on new features makes the most sense.
So how about:
* WiX v3.9 ships by 4-July-2014 and we stop taking new features
20-May-2014. That leaves five weeks of test and bake time.
* WiX v3.10 becomes a platform/bugfix release only, date driven by
Windows and Visual Studio.
* WiX v3.11 might never ship.
?
On 29-Apr-14 14:24, Rob Mensching wrote:
I totally agree that not taking features in a branch should come with
appropriate warning. I would note that it's been said for quite a
while that not all features will make it into WiX v3.x and Bob's blog
post suggests that WiX v3.9 should be ramping down. That sounds like
the beginnings of warnings... if people agree. Again, Bob's making the
ultimate call here so I'm just stirring the pot a little bit to get
ideas about how we are doing.
Anyway, I believed we all agreed that breaking changes need to go to
v4.0. The feature we started discussing is a breaking change that
requires use of some fun COM versioning techniques to avoid the
breaks. That kinda' tipped over from "small feature" to "big feature"
in my head. Again, as I noted below, I haven't looked at the changes
I'm just proposing that maybe this feature needs to move to WiX v4.
Already, we're talking about re-implementing the feature differently
in WiX v4.
It will become increasingly difficult to port features from v3.x to v4.x.
That makes the transition from one major version to the next major
version very hard. Derek and I had a very long conversations over many
months during the transition from v2 to v3. It was not easy to realize
the best for the project was to move forward not constantly maintain
backwards.
At some point we need to generally agree about how we want to focus
our efforts.
If the answer is, "We want to focus our efforts on adding backwards
compatible features to WiX v3.x for the next year or two years or
three years or whatever (and port opportunistically to WiX v4.0)" then
we can decide that. If the answer is, "We will do feature work in WiX
v4.0 and purely maintain stability and VS parity in WiX v3.x" that's
something very different.
Whatever we decide will have major implications to the future of the
WiX toolset.
_______________________________________________________________
FireGiant | Dedicated support for the WiX toolset |
http://www.firegiant.com/
*From:*Sean Hall [mailto:r.sean.h...@gmail.com]
*Sent:* Tuesday, April 29, 2014 11:01 AM
*To:* WiX toolset developer mailing list
*Subject:* Re: [WiX-devs] Compatibility and style discussion
I think that if you are going to stop taking features in a branch, you
need to give sufficient warning beforehand. I don't know how long
that should be, but if the pull request was submitted before you gave
warning it should be accepted (unless it's a massive change like my
4299 pull request).
When I was talking about making 4.0 stable by the time 3.9 releases,
that was assuming that you stop taking feature requests in 3.x after
that. I actually don't want to stop taking feature requests in 3.x
any time soon. If the developer submitting the feature does the work
of submitting separate pull requests, I don't see why it can't be
accepted in 3.x and 4.x. I don't see why you would do things like add
support for "VS-Next" but not take other feature requests.
On Tue, Apr 29, 2014 at 12:39 PM, Rob Mensching <r...@firegiant.com
<mailto:r...@firegiant.com>> wrote:
I basically agree with your classifications.
So in my comments, I was channeling Bob's latest blob post:
http://www.joyofsetup.com/2014/04/25/to-wix-v3-9-and-beyond/ that
suggested now is no longer the time to be adding features to WiX
v3.9. Definitely more Bob's call than mine but I was playing
devil's advocate (because someone has too... and usually it's Bob.
<smile/>)
I also feel that WiX v3.10 should be what you call a maintenance
branch but I suppose that depends a little on what the heck Visual
Studio does next. Maybe WiX v3.11 can be solely targeted to
support VS-Next?
Given that there has been very little activity in WiX v4.0 besides
what we've done at FireGiant, I doubt it will be possible to make
WiX v4.0 stable at the same time we release WiX v3.9. However, I
don't know why that matters. WiX v4.0 shouldn't be more than 6-9
months out (I hope closer to 6 than 9 since we originally stated
v4.0 should go out summer or early fall). That means any features
going there should be going there quickly.
Basically, I'm once again suggesting we need to shift our focus
from adding features to WiX v3.x to adding features to WiX v4.0
and solely fixing bugs in WiX v3.x. Note, this is just my
suggestion (Bob still makes call on in/out for WiX v3.x) but I'm
curious if others think I'm way off base.
_______________________________________________________________
FireGiant | Dedicated support for the WiX toolset |
http://www.firegiant.com/
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