[Laszlo-dev] Simplifying our 'point release' process

[Matt Kolenda]

Tucker

May I suggest that the Release ID begin at 1 instead of 0.  People tend 
to refer to releases as ordinal numbers starting at 1.

Matt

Matt Kolenda
Laszlo Systems
mobile: 415.505.5393
email: mkolenda at laszlosystems.com


On Wed, Sep 23, 2009 at 8:58 AM , P T Withington wrote:

> I'd like to simplify our process for creating (what we call) 'point 
> release's, releases where we are incrementing the 3rd component of the 
> release ID, which typically only include a very small number of 
> targeted fixes in response to customer or maintenance contracts. 
> Since these point releases are typically only targeted to a single 
> customer, I don't feel we should have to go through the full [Release 
> Process](http://wiki.openlaszlo.org/Release_Process).
>
> What I'd like to propose is that we separate out the concept of a 
> "version" and a "release".  Taking the current 4.6.2 branch as an 
> example, I propose that it would be known as Version 4.6, Release 2. 
> I propose that we would implement this new procedure in trunk and put 
> it into effect in Version 4.7.  Basically, rather than 
> build.properties having version.id and release.id which are redundant, 
> we would have version.id be the first two components of the current 
> version (e.g., 4.7) and release.id would be 0, and incremented for 
> each point release (should there be any) out of that branch.
>
> A goal of this simplification is to reduce the overhead of a point 
> release, so that there is no need to update release notes or web 
> content to create the point release.  The point release can simply 
> replace the previous point release on the download server.
>
> The major work that would be needed to do this:
>
> . Adjust the build system to know the difference between version and 
> release, using the appropriate combination in each place.  In 
> particular, this should remove the requirement that the nightly-build 
> script has to be updated for each point release, and remove the point 
> designation from the download paths and images (so the download page 
> will not need to be updated).
>
> . Adjust any parameterized documentation to know the difference 
> between @VERSIONID@ and @RELEASEID@, using the appropriate combination 
> in each place.  This should remove the need to update the release 
> notes for point releases.
>
> . Adjust the LFC and debugger to know the difference between version 
> and release, using the appropriate combination in each place.  This 
> should simply be a reorganization of the canvas attributes and the way 
> the debugger prints version and release info for bug reports, etc.