Thanks Earl, I'm in the process of creating releases. While I was already on the DRUPAL-5-2--6 tag, coder was still a bit out of date! Earl Miles wrote:
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But now, the d.o issue's start coming along... and I maintain these modules outside of the client development process. At what point do I create a new release? After I fix the first bug/feature request? After the second? After the third? Multiply this by 20 modules, and for me, it comes down to a question of time and help. I tend to create releases when a user reports that I forgot to create a release or when users start reporting bugs in previous releases, that I know are already fixed in dev. This is a really difficult problem and question for me.
Well, look at it from the other side of the coin. When you're building a client site, don't you find it easier when whatever module you're using has a decent release workflow? There are release notes (theoretically) and version numbers. It's easier to report bugs against specific versions, and you can get a feel for how far out of date your -dev is. And you get some shielding from bad commits. 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.
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.
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!
-- Doug Green douggreen@douggreenconsulting.com 904-583-3342 Bringing Ideas to Life with Software Artistry and Invention...