[wx-dev] [all] 2.7.0 and releases organization in general

[Alex Bligh]

> MR> "This is a technology preview release out of a series of many towards
> MR> the way of a stable more feature-rich 2.8 production release. There
> are MR> no API nor ABI compatibility assurances for the 2.7.0 release
> compared MR> to the 2.6 series or the upcoming releases in the
> development cycle. MR> However, we'd like you to test it out and let us
> know of problems and MR> wishes through our bugs and feature request
> trackers. We do not advise MR> to use this version of the framework in
> production."
>
>  I wouldn't put this. It's clear that some (long) time will pass before
> 2.8 is available and I'm sure people will want and need use things like
> wxAUI and wxRichTextCtrl before then. I think it's quite possible to use
> 2.7 in production, you just need to freeze the version you use -- you
> definitely can't allow following cvs HEAD as you could, in principle,
> follow 2.6 branch (even though it would be more prudent to freeze the
> version you use even on 2.6).

I think we should seriously discourage people from doing this. They
use the (new) wxGrummit class in 2.7.0. We completely rewrite it
after 2.7.0. Their code doesn't work. We should prepare them for
the fact that this is LIKELY to happen, not least because the sort
of thing they will want 2.7.0 for (e.g. wxAUI as you just mentioned)
are exactly the sort of things likely to have a volatile ABI. We
should at the very least be telling them that if they do, despite
the unstable API, decide to use this in production, they should be
prepared to ship their own wxWidgets version and static link to their
application - they should NOT expect distro support. Equally we should
actively encourage this NOT to be included in the distros.

I agree there is no point crying wolf and saying "this is likely
to make your CPU catch fire and erase all your data", but that said,
we should be quite, about what will happen w.r.t. ABI support, and
err on the side of caution.

Note it is quite possible (indeed even relatively easy) to use all
this new fun stuff with 2.6. So far I've backported wxAUI, wxTreeBook,
wxOwnerDrawnComboBox, and several other bits. I haven't tried wxRichTectCtrl
but I guess it wouldn't be hard. And I've made these all available in
case people want them, and kept them reasonably in sync. So one can
use all these 2.7 features under 2.6 if one wants. This ringfences any
API/ABI instability to the particular features the user requires, and
lets you dynamic link with the majority of wxWidgets.

To make it clear, I'm not against a 2.7.0 release at all - I just
think it should carry appropriate health warnings.

Alex