Stop the progress, I wanna get off!

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greggles's picture
Drupal development/release cycle should be slowed
35% (27 votes)
Drupal's development pace is right on
53% (41 votes)
I scratch my own itches and don't care about speed of release cycles
13% (10 votes)
Total votes: 78

Comments

background

greggles's picture

The background on this poll has two parts:

First, the claim that Drupal Release Cycle is Challenging for Larger Sites/clients which was posted in the "Consulting and business" group and which, I think, is a decent rehash of the old issue about how the Drop is always moving

Second, the claim that The Developers MUST Be Stopped! which is a vitriolic post that can only aspire to be flame-bait (hence the selection in Drupal for Evil).

So - what say you? Should Drupal's progress stop? Do we need to force developers to do more documentation (as if that would work); should we just all get in tune with the moving drop and be the change that we hope to see in the world and create the infrastructure/services that we find missing in the community; or should we just keep scratching our own itches and not think about these crazy topics?

Speak your mind.

--
Knaddisons Denver Life | mmm Free Range Burritos

Tempted...

Boris Mann's picture

...to promote...to...front page....must....resist...call...of....evil

:P

exactly, sir

moshe weitzman's picture

no friggin front page for this honeypot. please noone promote this.

dries gave this a pretty balanced treatment on this blog. go comment there

I agree

Too late. It seems to

laura s's picture

Too late. It seems to already be there.


Laura
pingVision, LLC

Laura Scott
PINGV | Strategy • Design • Drupal Development

extend support?

pwolanin's picture

Perhaps the calls for a slowing would be less if the bug support went back for 2 releases rather than one. I realize this takes interested people to watch the queus and backport, but it seems like 4.7 has a pretty big install base that might support this.

Also, I think there needs to be stronger guidance on choosing modules- I think people get stuck who install 20 contrib modules that have ony marginal commitment from their developers and then half don't get updated

Agree with that. If there's

catch's picture

Agree with that. If there's ever a module rating system it might help to prevent situations like that arising so often. Also a longer support period would allow people to skip releases - so do things like 4.7 to 6.x to 8.x for an upgrade cycle without worrying about being left in the cold for security.

This was covered...

Boris Mann's picture

...in the original giant long thread of doom. Anyone is welcome to step up and support older versions. Right now, we've actually got dedicated people for each branch, and that COULD continue to grow if more qualified people step up. But I probably shouldn't be fanning the flames here....I think I'm pretty happy with my comments in the original thread.

I'm more excited about the

catch's picture

I'm more excited about the d.o redesign analysis and docs (and will try to help with that, me helping maintain 4.6 wouldn't be good) - I reckon making it much easier to find the primary contrib modules and documentation could massively reduce module bloat and upgrade-unfriendly practices (which I'm still guilty of myself as I haven't got my head round the apis for plenty of stuff). Then there's less code to break, and less to complain about when it comes to upgrade time.

The pace is right on...

rickvug's picture

I think that the development pace of change is great. As I've heard many people say, the drop must keep moving. What is off (in my opinion) is the release cycle as it is simply too short. How about leaving development open for another few months to make the leap from 5.0 - 6.0 that much larger. This would cut down on the module support and migration problem headaches with each release.

My 2cents, take it or leave it.
Rick

what is ideal?

greggles's picture

What do you see as the ideal space between releases?

--
Knaddisons Denver Life | mmm Free Range Burritos

depends on the client.. some

Shiny's picture

depends on the client.. some of mine can handle an update every 6 months
some prefer 2years....

would be nice to know, if i use drupal's current release, i'll have some assurance it will be supported for at least the next X months.. then i can make decisions.

I would assume so, that it is the case...

OSLinux's picture

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More Of Profile: http://drupal.org/user/108138

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More Of Profile: http://drupal.org/user/108138

My ideal is at least 8 months, less than a year.

rickvug's picture

My comment was less about the length between the releases and more about the time spent on development per a release. Three months is not a long time. An extra two months for 6.0 might not be long enough to add in some high priority changes such as forum improvements, a new theme, Open ID, CCK fields in core, re-working profile to use those fields, the token module include etc... While I'm sure that a few of these updates will make it in before the deadline in a few weeks I feel like having an extra two months of open development could lead to a more substantial and newsworthy release. If there isn't that extra time all of these features will end up waiting another 8 months until Drupal 7.

Having said that though,

catch's picture

Having said that though, delaying drupal 6 means drupal 7 will be 10 months instead of 8, so if those still didn't get in, then they'd be delayed an extra two months anyway.