From: Gregory Brown <gregory.t.brown@...>
Date: 2008-08-08T02:07:38+09:00
Subject: Re: State of Ruby 1.8.6?

On Thu, Aug 7, 2008 at 12:47 PM, James Britt <james.britt@gmail.com> wrote:
> David A. Black wrote:
>
>> My understanding of 1.8.7 is that it mainly exists to facilitate
>> transition to 1.9. The problem, for me, is that it's an extra step: when I
>> move to 1.9, I will just move in one step. 1.8.7 is too big a
>> change from 1.8.6, and not enough of a change to really be 1.9. It's
>> definitely much bigger than any other third-digit change I've seen in
>> Ruby, and is causing more confusion and ambivalent feeling than any
>> other.
>>
>> One problem is that the default API docs are now 1.8.7, which means
>> they're really almost 1.9-compliant, and that means that people are
>> getting confused when their installed Ruby is so different from the
>> docs.
>
> Would it be better if ruby-doc.org defaulted to showing the 1.8.6 docs, with
> a distinct link to the 1.8.7 docs for those who want to see them?
>
> I updated the site shortly after 1.8.7 was released, but I'm sensing that
> for most people 1.8.6 is really the de facto current version.  (I, too, am
> using 1.8.6.)

Definitely seems like a good idea to me.

The trouble I see with 1.8.7 is that although it is forward
compatible, it's not backwards compatible.  So if I write my code
against 1.8.7, my users need to upgrade.  Writing code on 1.8.6
ensures me that *most* of what I do will run on any old version of
1.8, but not necessarily 1.9.

I love 1.8.7 as a stepping stone, but I don't think it should have
become the head of the API-stable 1.8 branch. It just creates too much
confusion.

-greg