[GRASS-dev] 6.4.0 -ending story

[Hamish]

IMHO it is much worse for the long term reputation of the software/us to
ship 6.4.0 on windows with front-visible stuff broken than it is to
delay. For brand new users a lot hinges on first impressions..
and really, in the last months we have made a lot of progress on that.

so yeah, the delay is frustrating, but we are all busy & stuff is
regularly improving to the point where we can say that this release will
be closer to a x.y.1 than a x.y.0.

Michael:
> > A big blocker was fixed yesterday - v.delauany broken on Mac and
> > Windows.

(everyone needs to test the heck out of it now of course)

Markus:
> I see:
> A) winGRASS related:
> 
> * 580 WinGRASS: $GISBASE/etc/gui/scripts/ require something
> like $(EXE) to run    
>   -> status unclear to me

hopefully now fixed in the last 24 hours.


> * 759 r.patch non-functional in WinGRASS 6.4 svn on Vista
>   -> awaiting guru comment
Michael:
> > This is due to security routines on *some* Vista systems.

I'm not totally convinced of our analysis of that (see my last comments
in the bug report). but if the work-around does the trick that's good
enough for the release notes.

 
> * 809 v.db.addtable consistently fails in winGrass
>   -> apparently not reproducable?
Michael:
> > This is caused by the scripting issues above IIRC.

I'm pretty sure it will be something else actually.

.. v.db.droptable is not in the wx menu system??

I just found that v.db.droptable fails with a not quoting spaces-in-
pathnames bug.   curly brackets with ${path with spaces} is not enough
to protect it when used as a command line argument!
Also MS Windows requires that GIS_OPT_ and GIS_FLAG_ names be in caps.

hopefully now fixed in SVN. all v.db. and db. scripts need testing,
they were added after the great shell script quoting audit.

there was another failure with grep:

grep '...' | cut -f1 -d: 

but when the filename starts with C: you get "C" instead of the filename.

(`grep -l` is probably more appropriate there, but I'm not sure if it's
portable)

 
> * 843 v.digit broken on new WinGrass release
>   -> contains a suggestion

Maris and Glynn are working to resolve this. Seems plausible that it 
will be backported and ready for final testing by next week.


> B) Misc
> * 72  PNG driver: boundary rendering is off by one
> pixel
>   -> awaiting guru comment
Michael:
> > Also only noticeable in special circumstances.

mmph. I notice it all the time. But but appears I'm the only one who does
& it makes cringe, and I haven't had the time to spend the hours on it,
so it's not a blocker. I just think it sucks whenever I want to do any
really professional hardcopy output I've got to touch it up in the gimp.


> * 384 wxGUI: vdigit crashes on a big map
>   -> who can confirm?

... ?

> * 461 v.to.db crashes on a shapefile connected with
> v.external
>  -> still valid?

... ?

> I personally vote for going ahead and publishing this week RC6

My vote is to wait for the v.digit stuff to get sorted out, and as
soon as it is cut the RC.


Hamish