[ruby-core:19121] Re: [ANN] Ruby 1.9.1 feature freeze

On Oct 2, 2008, at 11:35 PM, Austin Ziegler wrote:

>
> Is that necessarily a bad thing?

Yes: most of the last minute issues folks are discussing now are  
because there weren't many people using 1.9. Most of the  
default_internal discussion was brought about because JEG actually  
tried to write something using the new encoding scheme. Similarly, the  
miniunit discussions all came about because suddenly people were made  
to use it in the 1.9 tree.

One of the fundamental drivers behind agility is feedback. When the  
"experimental" branches are sequestered away like this, the number of  
people using the new release is small, and the feedback you get is  
poor. As a result, the developers tend to tinker in something of a  
vacuum. The release gets bigger and bigger, and the differences  
between the new and the old get greater and greater. Then, when you do  
finally drop the new 2.0, people will feel there's such a major  
difference they will be reluctant to change.

I think the discipline of frequent, fixed freezes and releases can  
only help the language development process. I'm disappointed that this  
latest freeze has become slushy.



Dave