metronome mail for Bazaar 2.0 (or 1.18) - 6 August

[Andrew Cowie]

On Fri, 2009-07-24 at 13:31 +1000, Martin Pool wrote:
> We won't slip this release, but depending on testing feedback we may
> defer general recommendation of 2a until we're sure it's stable, in
> which case this release will be called 1.18.

That seems a very responsible approach.

++

We're all hackers here, but it's easy to forget that calling something
major.0 is a marketing statement, not a technical one. You're going to
get a lot of attention when you release something called "2.0". I'm
pretty sure that every one in the core Bazaar community knows that.

Certainly making sure 2𝑛 is robust enough to stay as-is for ~2 years is
important and you're on top of that, but *please* also try get in as
much polish in as you can. There are UI glitches (lord nows there are
many things that I personally find annoying about using bzr, and I'm
like already converted, y'know?) *especially* as are encountered
anywhere in the early-use - progress bar artifacts, incomprehensible
error messages, inconsistencies between namespaces and aliases¹, stack
traces when you try to use bzr viz the first time... all that stuff
makes Bazaar look unprofessional and belies the huge amount of work that
makes it an awesome tool inside.

So just as you are willing to slip one release cycle for format
stability, I encourage you to value getting the hundreds² of little,
unsexy, but user-visible rough edges cleaned up. They're worth the same
slip. If you can, then it'll make 2.0 something that people _outside_
our community will buzz about.

++

Anyway, other than that plea, I want to compliment everyone on the
steady evolution of bzr, and thank you for your efforts, whatever it is
you choose to work on. Bazaar certainly is a long way from where it was
at 0.7 when we started using it.

AfC
Sydney

¹ why does -r parent: not work? What does :parent mean? What's the
difference?

² yes I picked that number out of the air, but I don't think it's out of
line; we have endless conversations about user interface and user
experience glitches that lead to bug reports which are
accepted/confirmed/whatever that then languish.

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 198 bytes
Desc: This is a digitally signed message part
Url : https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/bazaar/attachments/20090724/6df4c6fa/attachment.pgp