Re: Roadmap for 4.9.1, 4.10.0 and onwards?

[Bruce Adams <tortoise_74 at yahoo dot co dot uk>]

----- Original Message -----
> From: Paulo Matos <pmatos@broadcom.com>
> To: Basile Starynkevitch <basile@starynkevitch.net>; Bruce Adams <tortoise_74@yahoo.co.uk>
> Cc: "gcc@gcc.gnu.org" <gcc@gcc.gnu.org>
> Sent: Tuesday, May 20, 2014 5:04 PM
> Subject: RE: Roadmap for 4.9.1, 4.10.0 and onwards?
> 
>>  -----Original Message-----
>>  From: gcc-owner@gcc.gnu.org [mailto:gcc-owner@gcc.gnu.org] On Behalf
>>  Of Basile Starynkevitch
>>  Sent: 20 May 2014 16:29
>>  To: Bruce Adams
>>  Cc: gcc@gcc.gnu.org
>>  Subject: Re: Roadmap for 4.9.1, 4.10.0 and onwards?
>> 
>>  On Tue, 2014-05-20 at 11:09 +0100, Bruce Adams wrote:
>>  > Hi,
>>  >     I've been tracking the latest releases of gcc since 4.7 or so
>>  (variously interested in C++1y support, cilk and openmp).
>>  > One thing I've found hard to locate is information about planned
>>  inclusions for future releases.
>>  > As much relies on unpredictable community contributions I don't
>>  expect there to be a concrete or reliable plan.
>> 
>>  > However, equally I'm sure the steering committee have some ideas
>>  over
>>  > what ought to be upcoming releases.
>> 
>>  As a whole, the steering committee does not have any idea, because GCC
>>  development is based upon volunteer contributions.
>> 
> 
> I understand the argument but I am not sure it's the way to go. Even if the 
> project is based on volunteer contributions it would be interesting to have a 
> tentative roadmap. This, I would think, would also help possible beginner 
> volunteers know where to start if they wanted to contribute to the project. So 
> the roadmap could be a list of features (big or small) of bug fixes that we 
> would like fixed for a particular version. Even if we don't want to name it 
> roadmap it would still be interesting to have a list of things that are being 
> worked on or on the process of being merged into mainline and therefore will 
> make it to the next major version.
> 
> That being said I know it's hard to set sometime apart to write this kind of 
> thing given most of us prefer to be hacking on GCC. From a newcomer point of 
> view, however, not having things like a roadmap makes it look like the project 
> is heading nowhere.
>
If you think of gcc as a large distributed agile project the road map may be buried
somewhere in the bug database. Perhaps its a matter of mining the relevant details
or encouraging practices that make them mineable?
The bugzilla has fields for assignee, priority and target milestone that could be used as hints.
The trouble is its very low level. 
The intent is buried in the communities subjective interpretation of priority. I don't know
how well that mirrors the actual values in the priority fields. I wouldn't expect it to without
a conscious effort.

If I search for "ALL cilk 4.9" or "ALL cilk" it is still not obvious that the cilk branch 
was merged into main prior to release 4.9.0. Though that could be down to my unfamiliarity with more complex queries in bugzilla.

Regards,

Bruce.