Re: [boost] Re: 1.32 release preparation

From: Jeff Garland (jeff_at_[hidden])
Date: 2004-06-27 10:30:20

On Sun, 27 Jun 2004 08:53:29 -0400, David Abrahams wrote
> I'd like to know the reasons for "all the sudden rush".  We did

I agree with Dave on this -- the release was advertised ages ago.  As much as
I'd like to see circular_buffer, serialization, etc in this release I'd rather
see us pull off a release that doesn't take 2-3 months to accomplish.  I
believe we should hold the line on the schedule now and anything that isn't
ready should simply go in the next release.  One reason I believe this is that
it is unfair to the people graciously volunteering their time to manage the
release -- being in limbo for 2 months is a big burden.  There is also a
higher load on the folks running regression tests. And if there are a large
number of new things left out by that approach then we should plan another
release sooner rather than waiting 4 months.   

> announce a schedule long ago, and it has already been delayed by 
> three weeks.  I'm not asking in order to point fingers; I just want 
> to know how to avoid the "sudden rush" next time.  How come we have 
> so many accepted libraries that have not even been put in the CVS?

I think there are 2 factors here.  One is that we have been reviewing and
accepting a large number of libraries recently.  So, many of these have been
accepted in the last couple months.  The other thing that seems to be a
pattern is that libraries get accepted, then authors get a list of changes to
make.  If they get busy it often takes months to get these done and then
finally they check into CVS.  So a release tends to trigger the evaluation of
anything that is in that multi-month pipeline.

BTW, I've been very busy lately, but I noticed that the reviews seem to have
ground to a halt again -- I haven't pinged Mr. Witt, but we seem to have lost
focus on working off the review backlog.

Jeff