[Idle-dev] [Fwd: Re: Idlefork]

[Stephen M. Gava]

Moving this discussion on to idle-dev.

-----Forwarded Message-----

From: Guido van Rossum <guido@python.org>
To: elguavas@users.sourceforge.net
Cc: Kurt B. Kaiser <kbk@shore.net>, Raymond Hettinger <python@rcn.com>, Chui Tey <teyc@users.sourceforge.net>
Subject: Re: Idlefork
Date: 11 Jun 2002 19:59:30 -0400

> The thing is, if DS_RPC_BRANCH is meant to be a relatively stable
> branch that users can do checkouts from, then I don't know if I
> should be committing further config stuff there, since I'm just as
> liable to be breaking things as anybody else.

But the kind of thing you would check in there is miles more reliable
than what Kurt is planning for the trunk.  So I agree with Kurt that
you should be fine doing this on the branch.

> Maybe my thinking isn't being particularly clear on this. I thought
> you mentioned at one stage that maybe all new work should continue
> on MAIN and DS_RPC_BRANCH should be left for stable checkout and
> historical comparison purposes, in which case I wondered why did we
> even need to branch since the idle tree was already tagged before
> that point. I meant to ask you about that when we were still
> discussing the branching but then I got distracted.  Probably I'm
> failing to see some important point entirely.

You're close.  The arrangement seems very similar to what we've
adopted for Python: development goes onto the trunk (unless someone
wants to have a "sandbox" branch -- we don't do this very often for
Python, but e.g. Zope uses this a lot), but for past releases there's
a maintenance branch from which every once in a while a bugfix release
is cut.

I'd say even if you don't plan to do bugfix releases, maintaining the
branch is a fine idea -- you never know when you decide that you
*should* do a bugfix release.

> BTW, while I'm on the subject of getting distracted and forgetting
> to do stuff, I also meant to mention _everyone_ that not only is
> python 2.2.x or better required to work on (or even run) idlefork at
> the moment, but that Guido has made a clear statement that we are
> not to bother at all about writing code especially to be compatible
> with earlier python versions. If there are useful 2.2.x + constructs
> for the job at hand then use them. If and when idlefork becomes the
> new idle it will be to accompany the then current and future python
> versions. Older python versions will have the previous idle
> versions.

Yup.

BTW, why aren't we discussing this on idle-dev?  Everyone there should
benefit (even if it's just us by now :-).

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