[development] Module developers, please do *proper* releases !

[Earnie Boyd]

Quoting Doug Green <douggreen at 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/