[Distutils] ANNOUNCE: Distutils 0.1.2 released

[Guido van Rossum]

> <rant>
> 
> 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."
> 
> Screw that. Release a version. If that breaks, then release another. This
> whole tentative thing just slows everything down. Holding back releases
> doesn't really buy a person anything.
> 
> I remember somebody on python-list didn't want to release some code
> because they didn't "clean it up" and/or document it. Six months later,
> they still hadn't released the code -- meaning nobody got *any* advantage
> out of that code. Even if you release crap, then somebody may still be
> able to use it. Maybe they can even help you fix it up. But the notion of
> "well, I need to do X before sending out a copy" often translates to "I'll
> never send out a copy."
> 
> </rant>

I realize it's just a rant.  In this case (distutils) your advice is
correct.  (I usually paraphrase it as "release early, release often".)

However there are other situations, like core Python itself, where
it's really useful to have stable releases -- if only for those users
who won't touch anything with "beta" in its name.  I still hear from
people who haven't upgraded to 1.5.2.

I wonder if perhaps for those cases (where there's a demand for stable
releases) some other strategy could be used?  Such as labeling
releases "stable" after the fact?  Or what Linus seems to do with the
Linux kernel (even = stable, odd = development; or was it the other
way around?).

--Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/)