Discussion on 4.2.1 update frequency

[Justin Hickey]

On Jun 19, 11:30am, Markus Neteler wrote:
> Subject: Discussion on 4.2.1 update frequency
> Dear GRASS Community,
>
> you may have realized that the update frequency for
> GRASS 4.2.1 is very high. I would like to ask you
> (start a discussion on this point), what way do you
> prefer for future development:
>
>  Sceneries (all ways certainly with publishing of small
>             update packages beside the full code package):
>
>   a) update with high frequency (all 2 weeks depending
>                          on input like today)
>
>   b) update with medium frequency (monthly for example)
>
>   c) update with less frequency (e.g. collecting changes for
>                                  half a year)
>
> I expect that the base package of GRASS 5.0 will be
> published in late summer 1998. Because all functions could
> not yet be included in that distribution, GRASS 4.2.1 will
> survive for some time in parallel to allow a "soft migration".
> Later this year (or next year) the other functionality of
> 4.2 will be migrated to 5.0.

My view on this is that since GRASS consists of several separate and "mostly"
independent programs, as opposed to a single large program, it is generally
safe to include frequent updates to the source code. Most of the time, any
changes will not affect the general operation of GRASS. Therefore, I think that
the rate of updates should depend on the rate of changes submitted to Markus.
Of course if someone submits a change to a library (like libgis) or a major
header file (like gis.h) then the changes should be scrutinized a little more
carefully before adding them to the source code and issuing a new update.

Ultimately, it is up to the GRASS users to decide whether they will download a
new update or not. To facilitate this, providing a list of new features and bug
fixes for each update should be made available. Although Markus does this with
each new announcement of a new upgrade, I think it would be convenient for
users to have a "history of changes" web page for each of the upgrades. The
reason for this is that suppose I downloaded version 10, and so far I haven't
had time to upgrade to the latest release. Now that I have time, I would like
to be able to determine if it is worthwhile upgrading or not. A web page with a
list of changes for each upgrade would be the perfect place for me to make this
determination.

Markus, do you think having such a page is feasible? Any other comments from
the rest of the list?

-- 
Sincerely,

Jazzman (a.k.a. Justin Hickey)  e-mail: jhickey at hpcc.nectec.or.th
High Performance Computing Center
National Electronics and Computer Technology Center (NECTEC)
Bangkok, Thailand
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