[fpc-pascal] when will Free Pascal have a stable release of 2.7.2?

[Mark Morgan Lloyd]

Bart wrote:
> 2.7 branch will never be a stable release.
> Eventually we'll get a 2.8 release.

I think that needs to be made to sound more deliberate, for Dennis's 
benefit. Please could any of the core team jump on me if some detail's 
wrong, but:

1.x is obsolete, consideration of whether it's stable or unstable isn't 
relevant.

2.x.y includes both stable and non-stable releases. The non-stable 
releases in particular include trunk.

Where x is an even number, it's a stable release. So 2.0, 2.2, 2.4 and 
2.6 are stable, with 2.8 being the next stable release.

Where x is an odd number, it's not a stable release and should not be 
used for production purposes: specifically, it should not be used for 
compiling FPC itself or for compiling Lazarus etc. except as directed by 
developers.

The same pattern might or might not be followed by the y digit.

I think that trunk is currently 2.7.1. There are some things in trunk 
which will go into 2.8, others will remain in trunk when it becomes 2.9, 
others will be removed or left optional for experimentation.

There are cases where a developer will tell you to use a particular 
release (which might have a non-obvious numeric relationship to the 
current stable version) to get around a code-generation problem, but 
otherwise except for testing purposes you should stick to the even numbers.

This echoes the development practice of the Linux kernel, and is 
increasingly common practice.

-- 
Mark Morgan Lloyd
markMLl .AT. telemetry.co .DOT. uk

[Opinions above are the author's, not those of his employers or colleagues]