On Wed, Feb 18, 2015 at 5:26 PM, Andrew <redmu...@gmail.com> wrote: > Let me know if I’m off base about this—but I feel like I see a lot of > posts that are like this (i.e., use this arbitrary version, not this other > arbitrary version). Why are releases going out if they’re “broken”? This > seems like a very confusing way for new (and existing) users to approach > versions... >
In my opinion and in no way speaking for or representing Apache Cassandra, Datastax, or anyone else : I think it's a problem of messaging, and a mismatch of expectations between the development team and operators. I think the "stable" versions are stable by the dev team's standards, and not by operators' standards. While testing has historically been IMO insufficient for a data-store (where correctness really matters) there are also various issues which probably can not realistically be detected in testing. Of course, operators need to be willing to operate (ideally in non-production) near the cutting edge in order to assist in the detection and resolution of these bugs, but I think the project does itself a disservice by encouraging noobs to run these versions. You only get one chance to make a first impression, as the saying goes. My ideal messaging would probably say something like "versions near the cutting edge should be treated cautiously, conservative operators should run mature point releases in production and only upgrade to near the cutting edge after extended burn-in in dev/QA/stage environments." A fair response to this critique is that operators should know better than to trust that x.y.0-5 release versions of any open source software are likely to be production ready, even if the website says "stable" next to the download. Trust, but verify? =Rob
