Re: Problem "Stable" is not stable

[Joe1962 <joe1962@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Wed, Aug 28, 2024 at 6:09 AM Christof Thalhofer <chrisml@xxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

>
> Users have the impression that Gambas is not stable and that they cannot
> really rely on the programming language “because there are too much
> changes in every new version": He gave the website
> https://www.laurux.fr/ as an example and said that this had been his
> impression for quite a long time.
>
>
Bugs are normal in any ".0" release of any software, even huge projects
with lots of developers. Even with something as stable as postgreSQL, I
wait for the ".10" release, at least.

Now "changes" are something else and I often wish Gambas was more like
Java, where you can run a program compiled with Java 8, on a system with a
Java 11 runtime, maybe even with Java 21. Also, compiling Gambas source
with a newer version is often complicated. Like when I tried to migrate my
VectorLinux Gambas 1.x stuff to Gambas 3.x...! The forms were what really
killed me back then, but pure code changes can happen between a 3.x and a
3.x+1, for example.

Regarding stable and testing versions, there is the LTS paradigm, like
Ubuntu, or Java use, but this usually requires maintaining too many
versions. There is also the LibreOffice way, which "only" requires
maintaining 2 versions and which according to Wikipedia goes like this:

    "Fresh" – the most recent major version (branch), which contains the
latest enhancements but which may have introduced bugs not present in the
"still" release.

    "Still" (formerly "Stable") – the prior major version, which, by the
time it has become the "still" version, has had around six months of bug
fixing. It is recommended for users for whom stability is more important
than the latest enhancements.

Anyway, to cut this story short, any of these matters and methods I
mentioned would require more developers.

Regards,
Joe1962