Re: We Want Quality

On Thu, 29 Jun 2000, Zeev Suraski wrote: > On Thu, 29 Jun 2000, Sascha Schumann wrote: > > > The recent trouble has shown that our release process is far > > from being perfect. In order to achieve better quality > > releases, I urge the PHP community to adopt a couple of > > simple rules: > > > > Do not release anything untested. > > > Nice concept, except we do not have the resources to do that. We tried to > do that by letting people test the code 3 days in advance, which did not > discover the Windows CGI problem. Please keep an open mind. These are general guidelines. About the Windows CGI problem: It was immediately detected after the release of 4.0.1 was announced. Our release process must become broader to reach more testers. > > The simplest feature can break something. Changes are bad. > > Avoid them. > > > > Do not act hasty. > > > > Release candidates can get thrown out hourly, if necessary. > > The final release candidate should be available to the public > > for at least five days. > > This is completely unfeasible, and can definitely not live peacefully with > your previous suggestion. We can't halt development for 5 days, it'd > simply not work. Other projects can do it, so I don't see any reason why we cannot. You might want to elaborate on this point. > Even holding the code in a semi-frozen state for 3 days > between the RC announcement and the Release announcement is almost > mission-impossible; Keeping a 100% frozen codebase for 5 days between the > last working RC and the Release is both not doable, and not something I > would like to get to anyway. We should still behave like an OpenSource > project and not like a bureaucratic company. We have a bad history of last-minute updates *after* the release (i.e. PHP 4.0.0 and 4.0.1). I don't want to continue with such a crappy release procedure. If you have a proposal which addresses this problem, please tell us. - Sascha