[development] Drupal 6 release schedule

[Darrel O'Pry]

On Thu, 2007-02-01 at 00:03 +0200, Zohar Stolar wrote:
> 
> Dries Buytaert wrote:
> 
> > Hello world,
> >
> > I'm mailing to talk a bit more about the Drupal 6 release schedule. 
> > Drupal 5 had a 3 month development period, followed by a 5 month code 
> > freeze.  For Drupal 6, I'd like to propose a 4 month development 
> > period, followed by a code freeze.  As with Drupal 5, the code freeze 
> > will be guaranteed to be at least 2 months to give module authors time 
> > to plan and catch up.  In practice, and depending on the state of 
> > Drupal core at the code freeze date, it might take more than two 
> > months to get things stable.
> >
> > Sounds good?
> >
> > -- 
> > Dries Buytaert  ::  http://www.buytaert.net/
> >
> 
> I am a developer who considers himself to be at ease with Drupal, but 
> far from being an Drupal expert. Drupal is my main development platform, 
> and probably as many of you do, I also dream Drupal sometimes :-)
> With regards to that - I feel that from 4.7 to 5 Drupal changed in such 
> a extreme manner, that it will take most of the developers 4 months only 
> to get to know Drupal 5 properly...


I've accepted it. It's pretty much the social norm in the Drupal
development community to push the platform. You can probably expect it
to continue in its forward direction. 

Drupal 5 saw quite a few improvements, and several concepts partially
implemented that haven't come to full fruition yet. Output rendering as
formAPI constructs is partially implemented, right now the node output
is rendered FormAPI style, but isn't being leveraged. Configurable node
types found their way into core, but the field management aspect of CCK
has been completed. 

There is method within the madness though it may not be well documented
and releases need to keep coming to see the partially implemented
concepts completed. It's a non-blocking development process that leads
to a lot of innovation I believe. Release Often, Release often, release
often.

As far as new changes I think are coming in Drupal.
 - split hook_menu into hook_router? & hook_menu
 - cck fields working their way into core.
 - abstracted data definition language and api.
 - openid replaces drupal's existing distributed auth.
 - newer cooler form elements and widgets.

In contrib it would be nice to see modules continue to leverage FormAPI
better, some new FormAPI manipulation modules, and some modules can use
a good overhaul.

The learning curve from version to version is harder to get over than
then initial learning curve for me. I have to rid myself of old habits,
but normally there are only a few real changes needed to existing
modules. I ported the few I maintain from 4.7 to 5 in a period of
hours. 

DISCLAIMER: These are all just my opinions and delusional dreams. There
is no real roadmap, and the only things that get done will be those
people choose to do for whatever reason they choose to do it.

Are we already at Drupal 6 though? Can't a brother get a minor release?

.darrel.