One problem with this description is the way things are generated. A release that ends in -dev, is automatically generated by the system every time a change is committed. Alpha releases must be based on tags, which means they are a single snapshot of the code, that will never change.
So say a developer makes an Alpha release, states that some of the features aren't complete, but offers it to try anyway. Then say the developer makes a few changes to try to make those new features work correctly, but in the end, introduces a big that corrupts data. This is committed and rolled into a dev release. By your list below, you would choose a -dev release over a working alpha release.
One of the best ways to evaluate a module that has only a -dev release, is by the age of that release. If it's 6-8 months or a year old, and there are no bug reports in the issue queue, it could be more stable than another module's 2.4 release.
Remember here is no guarantee of quality behind anything in contrib.
All any of these labels mean, is that someone took the time to label what *they thought* it should be called and -dev is just the lack of taking time to label anything.
-Mike
On Sep 18, 2008, at 5:38 AM, michel wrote:
janni frento ha scritto:
Hi!
Is it adviseable to use beta modules, developer and alpha version on a live site?
RC: say "yes" BETA: "at your risk" DEV: "at your your your risk" ALPHA: "is a joke?"
M.
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__________________ Michael Prasuhn mike@mikeyp.net http://mikeyp.net