[python-committers] Python 3.6 Release Schedule Details

[Ned Deily]

On Oct 2, 2015, at 10:20, R. David Murray <rdmurray at bitdance.com> wrote:
> On Thu, 01 Oct 2015 22:24:18 -0400, Ned Deily <nad at acm.org> wrote:
>> Another change has been to add a fourth beta and drop the third
>> release candidate.  My gut feeling from the past several releases is
>> that a lot of feature code does not get checked in until close to the
>> b1 feature code cutoff so that extending the beta phase should result
>> in more testing exposure for all features.  And I would like to reduce
>> the amount of churn during the release candidate phase: a worthy goal
>> is to make no changes after rc1, so that an rc2 would be be made only
>> if absolutely necessary.
> 
> I would like to be wrong, but I think this is unrealistic.  The reality
> seems to be that there are a significant number of people (especially on
> the Windows side, if I'm guessing correctly) who do not test until we
> get to RC1.  IIRC we had a number of changes between RC1 and RC2, and a
> non-trivial number of changes between RC2 and RC3 this time around.

I would like to be right but we won't know for sure either way until we get there.  In 3.5.0, there were major changes to the Windows installation process and there is still some fallout from those changes that will be addressed in 3.5.1.  I'm hopeful that most of those issues were one-time things and that we can also learn from 3.5.0.  I plan to emphasize earlier testing of the betas and want to set expectations that, when we call something a release candidate, we really intend to be able to release it.  If it's not ready, then we may need to do another beta.  Release candidate releases are costly for all involved.  I'd like to see us try real hard to keep them to a minimum.

> That said, I do feel the amount of pre-release testing, even in the beta
> part of the cycle, has increased steadily in the past two or three
> releases, which is great to see.

Yes, it has.  Also, some of the third-party distributors - Ubuntu and MacPorts come to mind - have been more aggressive about pushing betas and even alphas out for wider exposure.  Anything we can do on the Windows side to help get more exposure earlier would be great, too.

--
  Ned Deily
  nad at acm.org -- []