[Opensim-dev] Stable Branch pt III Was: RFC: Changing default script engine to xengine

[Sean Dague]

Mike Mazur wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> On Wed, 10 Dec 2008 14:29:37 +0100
> Stefan Andersson <stefan at tribalmedia.se> wrote:
> 
>> Since trunk is currently considered anything but stable, are people
>> feeling up for trying out branching a stable version before we do
>> this, and then actually work on that branch to stabilize it?
> 
> I can see some people being hesitant to commit to supporting this
> because they don't want to worry about committing to two branches each
> time they have a fix, or they don't want to maintain two slightly
> different code bases. Bug reports could also become more of a hassle as
> some users will report bugs against the trunk, while others against the
> stable branch.
> 
> Having said that, I can see a benefit for having a stable branch.
> Ideally it would follow trunk pretty closely, and when it becomes
> challenging to apply patches to both trees without too much massaging,
> it's time to do final stabilization on that final branch and release.
> 
> I would like to encourage you to give this a try. If it works it's
> likely to convince the other developers to play along, and if it fails,
> we've learned our lesson. In the meantime, don't expect too much
> commitment from all the devs, and be prepared to take responsibility
> for this stable branch. After some time, we can all look back at how
> things went and decide what to do in the future.

The problem with stable branches... is they aren't.  If you add code to
a branch, you have the potential to break it, especially on a source
base as complex as OpenSim.

Personally, I'm going to stay focused on trunk, that's where my time and
interest lies.  A better approach to stability than stable branches is
to help create unit tests for trunk.  This helps contain behavior, and
drives towards code correctness for parts of the tree.  Over time,
that's the only way to have a truly stable tree.  It has prevented
dozens of bugs from going into the tree already.  I'd encourage people
spend time on enhancing automated testing instead of doing point in time
stable branches.

	-Sean


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