Quoting Doug Green <douggreen@douggreenconsulting.com>:
I really don't rely on the release system. I figure that most small module maintainers are as sloppy as me, and that using the latest "dev" version actually provides cleaner bug-fixed code.
Yes, if you're the maintainer or co-maintainer then please use -dev. If you're 1st time module user not knowing anything about PHP or coding in general then you had better be using a release.
We've had this discussion within CivicActions, and I'm pretty sure that I'm alone in my process:
I build client sites from every module's dev branch. I still pull everything from CVS, usually the DRUPAL-5 tag, but sometimes the DRUPAL-5--2 or DRUPAL-5--3 tags. This usually gives me the latest "dev" version of the module. If it's a true "dev" (i.e., under development) version, I discover this pretty quickly and either get the new latest version or revert to some stable version; I believe that I've only run into this a couple of times in the last year (btw, both occurrences were with views and/or panels). When I find bugs, I submit patches, and it's very rare to build a client site without submitting at least a couple patches. So if that CVS version I pulled is just the latest non-stable branch, I think that using this "dev" version actually helps the module maintainer find (I find them) and fix (I fix them) problems.
But then you are the co-/maintainer, correct? You know how to code, correct? The issue brought forth has to take into consideration the user who isn't and a default filter, as has already been suggested" that eliminates the modules without releases is a good thing.
The act of rolling a release, once you've done it a few times, takes only about 5 minutes. Be sure to use dww's cvs-release-notes.php which will generate release notes from commit logs for you. Then it's a matter of...tag, generate release notes, create release node. You are finished. Thanks Derek, that script really helps!
Ditto from me. Earnie -- http://for-my-kids.com/ -- http://give-me-an-offer.com/