Re: MIDI Bank Select proposal (was Re: [fluid-dev] Re: Son of ticket #65)

[David Henningsson]

2010-08-08 23:42, Pedro Lopez-Cabanillas skrev:
>> How about we release 1.1.2 now, list this as a known issue, and release
>> 1.1.3 as soon as this is agreed, fixed and finished, with Sysexes,
>> settings, and so on?
>> If that then takes just a week - then we can release 1.1.3 just a week
>> after 1.1.2. What do you think about that?
> 
> I don't agree with releasing 1.1.2 with this bug. If we need to delay the 
> release date one, or two, or three weeks, it should be delayed. Why are you 
> in a hurry?

1. Current trunk has some quite important reordering issues fixed with
my big thread safety rewrite, which should reach the users ASAP. In
short, current trunk is better, has more testing and is more stable than
1.1.1, which is why we should release.

2. If this was a critical bug to many users, it would have shown up much
earlier than half-a-year after 1.1.0/1.1.1 was released, so overall, it
is not critical enough to delay a release.

3. There is a risc that, if we wait a few weeks to get this in, a new
bug might show up which will make us want to fix that one in a few
weeks, and so on, it'll be an infinite (or at least long running) loop
of fixing and testing. I've seen it happen before, and I believe it's
about to happen again.

4. This new feature (recognizing sysex in particular), requires changes
to many of the MIDI drivers, and we risc regressions. I doubt that we'll
make it even in three weeks, with all the testing required.

5. For more arguments, see the chapter "release early, release often" in
"The cathedral and the bazaar" by Eric S Raymond (available online, in
many copies).

// David