On Tue, Feb 06, 2001 at 04:59:41PM +0100, Michael Schmitt wrote:
>
> PS: I noticed that there is some debate on what should go into 1.1.6fix2 and
> what should only be part of 1.2. From a user's point of view, I appreciate any
> improvements that are quickly accessable and only require minor local changes
> to LyX. E.g. a new layout file should not affect the overall stability of LyX
> (e.g. numbering of foils/better seminar class). The same applies to new key
> bindings. Even an automatic PDF preamble (which I asked for some time ago)
> should not cause bigger harm even if it requires some additional code lines.
> IMHO there is a clear distinction between minor fixes/improvements and more
> fundamental changes such as a new GUI that should only go into the development
> branch. Well, as I said, it's just my personal opinion.
I don't know how many of the core devvies agree with me here (I'm not one)
but the fix series is supposed to be FIXes. The whole point is that every
fix release should be *at least* as bug free as the previous release. And if
you've done any coding at all, you know that even adding "minor local
changes" to a program can often lead to bugs.
The LyX code development model has gone through a number of changes. I think
people eventually decided to make the fix branch extremely conservative
because we just don't have enough coders to have an evolving "stable" branch
like we used to. With so few coders, they need to devote their time to
developing the unstable branch, while devoting smaller amounts of time to
fixing the fix branch. If we get, say, 5 new coders who are willing to spend
a lot of time on LyX (without losing others), then we might have the time to
have a stable branch that gets new features in it.
-Amir
