[tei-council] next release

[James Cummings]

Sebastian Rahtz wrote:
> If we stockpile requests in eg trac, and then make them all in
> one fell swoop, we build up a logjam of work, potentially. That's
> the reason for having a stable branch and a development branch.
> You make fixes continuously in development, where people can
> see and test them, and work more cautiously in the stable
> trunk; but still make bug fixes in either. 

What is the difference between doing this and simply having the current system 
of SVN for development branch and occasional stable releases?  In both cases 
there is a place people can get the cutting edge, and a place they can get the 
last stable.  I'm still not convinced that the extra effort involved in 
branching is worth it.

> The tools let you
> easily merge from one branch to another without any
> sort of need to do things twice.

Any time I've tested merging things from one branch to another in SVN I've ended 
up with problems and complications.  Maybe that is just me.  It seems like an 
extra layer of complication that we don't need.

> Frankly, I am puzzled by the reluctance to follow what
> seems to me "software engineering using Subversion 101"....

I understand that this can be useful in source code production, but the 
production of the Guidelines seems slightly different.  Unlike some, I feel that 
people can wait for changes until the next stable release whether typos or more 
serious bugs.  (Unlike software our bugs don't really have security 
implications, or usually cause the software to not function.) Or if they really 
want them, they grab them from sourceforge.

-James
-- 
Dr James Cummings, Oxford Text Archive, University of Oxford
James dot Cummings at oucs dot ox dot ac dot uk