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>>>>> "John" == John Turner <turner@xdiv.lanl.gov> writes:

John> Steven L. Baur writes:
John> [pros and cons of ditching 19.15 and concentrating on 20 only]

sb> All in all, I'm leaning very heavily towards ditching 19.15, so if
sb> there are any objections, speak now or flame me in comp.emacs.xemacs
sb> for the next 3 years ;-).

John> I guess I'd really rather see a concerted effort to go ahead and
John> get 19.15 out the door ASAP.  I'll be interested to see what
John> others think.

John> Just off the top of my head, it seems that people *really* want
John> (in decreasing order) an XEmacs that:

John> o fixes most of the 19.14 bugs (esp. ones related to configure
John> and Options)

I've fixed a lot of broken lisp code, but clearly there's more to be
done.

John> o is faster than 19.14

I consider performance top priority now, but clearly the situation
right now is we're no slower than 19.14, and that's certainly not
cause for celebration.

John> o has tm bundled
John> o has AucTex bundled
John> o has efs bundled

None of these have been merged with 19.15 yet.

John> o will run on 95/NT

It won't be done by me, but I'll provide as much support as I can
if/when someone comes along who wishes to do these ports.

John> If 19.15 could meet even some of these (I know the last one is
John> "right out", as the Brits would say), then it seems to me that
John> it would be best to get it out.

John> Ditch the "lite" distribution idea if need be, even though I
John> think it was promised for 19.15 (unless of course it's already
John> done).  Are there other things that could be ditched?

No work has been done on the `lite' distribution.

John> I've got my own list of "outstanding issues" for 19.15, but I've
John> been holding off sending anything to the list because I just
John> didn't know what was going on.  I imagine others have similar
John> lists.

Now is the time to post them.

John> How long do you think it will be before 20 can be released?

Martin says the non-Mule code could go out today if it had to.  The
mule code will probably be ready sometime 1Q97.  I think if I had
enough support and I pushed really hard I could still get a release
out by Xmas eve, but December is a notoriously bad time for this sort
of thing.  Therefore I'm leaning towards January as a more realistic
goal.  20.0 without mule looks like 19.1[45].

John> I fear that a lot of momentum would be lost if 19.15 is ditched
John> and then it takes a long time to get 20 released.  If 19.15 can
John> get out the door, it will ease some of the pressure on getting
John> 20 out.

John> However, this is a very user-centric view.  If I'm totally wrong
John> about the timescales, i.e. if 19.15 is ditched then 20 can be
John> out only a few weeks after 19.15 would have been, then that's a
John> different matter.  Or if getting 19.15 out is going to be harder
John> than I think.

In order to get everything in the release I want, yes it will probably
take longer to get a 19.15 out than a 20.0 sans Mule.  The 20.0 code
base has been actively maintained and improved the last 5 months.  The
19.1[45] code base has hardly been touched.
-- 
steve@miranova.com baur
Unsolicited commercial e-mail will be billed at $250/message.
"Bill Clinton is a bore.  He doesn't have a creative bone in his
body."  -- David Brinkley

