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Re: missing explanation of Stage 4 in GCC Development Plan document
- From: Richard Biener <richard dot guenther at gmail dot com>
- To: Gerald Pfeifer <gerald at pfeifer dot com>
- Cc: GCC Development <gcc at gcc dot gnu dot org>, "Thomas Preud'homme" <thomas dot preudhomme at arm dot com>, James Greenhalgh <James dot Greenhalgh at arm dot com>
- Date: Mon, 19 Oct 2015 11:23:52 +0200
- Subject: Re: missing explanation of Stage 4 in GCC Development Plan document
- Authentication-results: sourceware.org; auth=none
- References: <00aa01d07ff6$85108880$8f319980$ at lge dot com> <CAFiYyc2==yhVKZEUVtzzoj3ENiGx1vfhcww6hv669LW-==56pg at mail dot gmail dot com> <20150427154834 dot GA1093 at arm dot com> <000b01d08170$6ac06ba0$404142e0$ at arm dot com> <CAFiYyc2H3avnL0OxQe69pPyr_DkKmaRB=boVfyHkVJsKVhvy1Q at mail dot gmail dot com> <alpine dot LSU dot 2 dot 11 dot 1510182116370 dot 2532 at antheas>
On Mon, Oct 19, 2015 at 3:41 AM, Gerald Pfeifer <gerald@pfeifer.com> wrote:
> fOn Tue, 28 Apr 2015, Richard Biener wrote:
>>>> Stage 2 has been missing for 7 years now, Stages 3 and 4 seem to blur
>>>> together, the "regression only" rule is more like "non-invasive fixes
>>>> only" (likewise for the support branches).
>>> Don't stage3 and stage4 differ in that substantial changes are still
>>> allowed for backends in stage3?
>> stage3 is for _general_ bugfixing while stage4 is for _regression_ bugfixing.
>
> I am wondering, do we want to keep this "forever", or adjust to
> the fact that stage 2 has been non-existent for a while?
>
> We may not want to redefine stage 3 to 2 and stage 4 to 3, but could
> use stage A, B, and C? (Or in fact alpha, beta, and RC phases which
> is what this essentially has become?)
I think we'd want to transition to more descriptive stage names. Like
"Development Stage" (stage1), "Stabilization Stage" (stage3) and
"Release Stage" (stage4). Note that Stage 4 is equal to the state
release branches are in (but we didn't yet branch for the release),
thus "Release Branch Stage" would be even better but also possibly
confusing (there isn't a branch).
Richard.
>
> Gerald