On Monday 08 April 2002 19:55, Guido van Rossum wrote: ... > > On the other hand, software dev't managers don't like the choice > > between an "old, obsolete, probably not of interest any more" piece > > of software, and one that's "so brand-new it's still churning AND > > may break your existing correct code". > > But that's still the choice they get, albeit phrased differently. If that's indeed all the choice they get, then phrasing, aka spin, is only going to help a little, and transiently. If the stable release is to be successfully marketed as "stable but actively maintained" then the part after the "but" needs to have some truth to it. However, I think that a clear message in this regard may half- magically help make itself true -- to wit: > > afford a better chance. The "stable" track would focus on not > > breaking existing correct programs; the "experimental" track would > > focus on enhancements with more freedom (including freedom to > > take some language-design risks). > > I'm not sure the stable track would differ in practice from what we're > already doing with 2.1.3 and 2.2.1. I think the clear separation would help. Consider a book author: what release is he or she going to focus on? He or she clearly wants to target the release that is CURRENT when the book comes out -- but need not target a release that is tagged as EXPERIMENTAL, unless perhaps in an advanced book. That is how the book market works: there's much less demand for a book about a release of software that is not current any more -- or about a release that is experimental. Thus the clear message "this is current, stable, actively maintained", even by itself, is going to attract some more volunteer active maintenance -- not quite a self-fulfilling prophecy, but... it does not need to follow that the experimental release gets less -- if the pie grows, both slices may get larger. Besides, "experimental" has its own allure -- you could call it "leading-edge" internally:-). > I don't know that 1.5.2's stability attracted people. It was probably > more its feature-fullness, plus the fact that around the same time > lots of books etc. started to appear. _I_ was attracted by a perception of 1.5.2's stability -- I'm rather a late-comer, remember. I thought a stable language gave me better chances to convince what was then my management -- and like many others I did not understand Python was so much stabler than (e.g. Perl), not for a deliberate decision, but by happenstance. I've heard others make very similar remarks in various personal conversations -- that the perceived stability was part of the appeal. (Some told me exactly the reverse, or rather explained why they chose, say, Ruby -- perceived as more active and therefore easier to make a mark in; I _suspect_ that if an experimental track had existed, Python would have looked more attractive to them without thereby losing attractiveness to the first crowd). Alex
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