Re: Reminder of dates

[Maciej Stachowiak <mjs noisehavoc org>]

On 15Nov2001 04:47PM (-0500), Michael Meeks wrote:
> 
> On Thu, 15 Nov 2001, Sander Vesik wrote:
> > The panel is largerly just a bloatist piece of "not so good code".
> 
>         And one of my fears about the impending 'Feature freeze' is that  
> we will enter an even more fascist "minimal changes" mode that only allows
> us to add semicolons to the code - thus leaving us with large swathes of  
> easily cleanable but unmaintainable code - that then we are forced to
> maintain in an even _more_ fasicst 'only add whitespace' mode for
> effectively ever.
>   
>         This would seem like a false economy to me - but ... perhaps
> someone will re-assure me that code changes won't be subject to individual
> review on a ';' basis after November the whatever.

Feature freeze is not minimal changes mode. It means no new
features. Bug fixes and cleanup are allowed and strongly encouraged
and need no review. It is not "semicolons only" mode. That would be
the "deep freeze" which comes just a few weeks before the final
release. 

Only for deep freeze will I expect actual code review of changes
(because at that point there is not a lot of time to test so we _have_
to minimize the risk).

To some extent, what is a new feature and what is a bug fix is a
matter of judgement. Mostly we have to trust people to excercise that
judgement. Examples: using pango for text drawing in all applets can
be considered cleanup/bugfixing; adding support for a panel floating
in the center of the screen is a new feature. Chaning the task list to
work with the new window manager spec would be in the grey area.
   
>         And here is the straw man for you to hit "Michael never wants to  
> freeze" - but no, I do - and there is a time and place for a minimal
> changes regimen, but it's not nearly that soon for something like the
> panel.

If you have suggestions for when to move the feature freeze date to, I
would love to hear them. The dates can and will be adjusted if they
harm the goal of getting something shippable soon.

 - Maciej