Re: Problem "Stable" is not stable

[Benoît Minisini <benoit.minisini@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Le 28/08/2024 à 12:09, Christof Thalhofer a écrit :
> Hi,
>
> a new user who has registered in the German forum gambas-club.de and is 
> very interested in Gambas has drawn my attention to a problem that I 
> have been aware of for some time:
>
> 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.
>
> I had to do a lot of arguing to convince him that Gambas is stable and 
> the backwards-compatibility of Gambas is really outstanding and much 
> better than many other programming languages.
>
> The reason for his impression is quite simple: What is published on 
> Launchpad under the label “stable” is definitely not stable if the minor 
> version has just changed. In reality, it takes months for the new minor 
> version to become really stable.
>
> At the moment version 3.18 is really really stable!
>
> I think to address this problem we need a different release cycle 
> because what is currently offered as "stable" is often damaging the 
> reputation of Gambas.
>
> So I suggest that we should think about whether it wouldn't be better to 
> label a new version as “testing” and the previous one as “stable” and 
> offer both on Launchpad.
>
> Alles Gute
>
> Christof Thalhofer

I mostly agree with the diagnosis, but what should I do in partical terms?

I think there is a misunderstanding: "stable" is related to the API, not 
to the number of bugs a release has.

Moreover, to have less bugs, more testers are needed. And usually, 
testers are often users, and they won't use a version if it is not named 
"stable"! A vicious circle...

As for the state of a stable release, it is good enough for my own need, 
i.e. my jobs where we run dozen of servers with Gambas 24 hours a day. 
But only a fraction of the Gambas components is used, and not the GUI, 
pdf and multimedia components, the harder to test automatically.

But the number of domains handled by the Gambas components is now so 
large that my own use cannot cover them anymore.

A difficult problem...

--
Benoît Minisini.