[Distutils] ANNOUNCE: Distutils 0.1.2 released

[Greg Ward]

On 15 December 1999, Greg Stein said:
> Who cares whether it is chancy or not?
> 
> This is a symptom that I've seen from many people. "Oh! I can't release
> yet... it might break." Or another favorite "Here is a pre-release, please
> test it and then I'll make a real release."

In my own defense, I think I like the code snapshot followed by a real
release a few days later.  That shows the world that things are
happening, and gives me time to take care of the bureaucracy of making a
release: make sure everything's checked in and tagged, update the
changelog, update the readme, update the web pages, and so forth.

Of course my self-imposed bureaucracy *does* slow down making releases
-- I would have a hard time putting out new versions every other day
because I insist on having a readable, grammatical, up-to-date README
file, and I am really keen on having everything under CVS control and
appropriately tagged.  These are the little things that make trying out
new software a lot easier on people; I for one am sick to death of
moderately good software that is hobbled by a lousy, out-of-date README
or poorly-written documentation.  I prefer to take a few hours more and
put out quality information as well as quality code.

IOW, yes: release early and release often.  But how early and how often
are matters of personal style, and not everyone can proceed at a
Linus-esque breakneck pace of new releases every couple of days.

        Greg