[Python-bugs-list] Fatal Python error: PyThreadState_Delete: invalid tstate (PR#299)

[greg@itasoftware.com]

>>>>> Guido van Rossum <guido@python.org> writes:

>> My question is, what is some normal user supposed to do?  Given that
>> the bug was fixed in June of 1999 and you didn't have a next release
>> planned for at least a year, wasn't a 1.5.3 warranted for a "CRITICAL
>> PATCH"?

> The bug occurs VERY rarely.  The problem with issueing a new release
> just to fix this is that lots of other, not so critical, changes would
> have to be vetted as well.

Hi Guido,

Thanks for the reply.  You seem to be saying that since other changes
had been made to the codebase between when 1.5.2 was released and when
this bug was fixed that releasing a fixed 1.5.2 would have required
incorporating all those other changes.  If so, that is not at all
true.  You should create a branch in your CVS repository at 1.5.2, fix
the bug in that branch (and any others that are found in the 1.5.x
lineage, at least until the next stable release), and continue
developing 1.6 as normal.  The only downside is that you have to check
bugfixes to 1.5.x series into both that branch and the main
development branch (1.6) - which is really not that bad at all.

A release methodology like this is really the only way to get an
absolutely, 100% rock solid version of python out there, as you cannot
expect to catch every last bug in a short alpha/beta testing cycle.

Greg