Suggestions for procedure going forward

[Faré]

On Tue, Nov 17, 2015 at 6:07 PM, Robert Goldman <rpgoldman at sift.net> wrote:
> On 11/17/15 Nov 17 -4:00 PM, Stelian Ionescu wrote:
>> On Tue, 2015-11-17 at 11:11 -0600, Robert Goldman wrote:
>>> We have had a number of ASDF 3 releases that have mostly been aimed at
>>> bug-fixing (although some new features have crept in).
>>>
>>> I'd like to declare ASDF 3 feature complete and done, but I don't want
>>> to close the door to future bug fix releases as needed, nor do I want to
>>> shove incomplete new features out in order to get bug fixes out.
>>
>> One suggestion I have before doing that is to remove the whole upgrading
>> mechanism. The purpose of it was to allow loading ASDF3 over ASDF 1/2
>> when the various implementations were only shipping with the latter, but
>> IMO it's now just a burden.
>>
>
> I believe it's still useful in case one needs to upgrade even an ASDF 3
> installation.  Particularly if we start work on an ASDF 4 that's not
> fully compatible....
>
> But perhaps Fare can weigh in on this.
>
I agree that upgrading from asdf 1 or 2 is happily becoming less
relevant these days.

I'm not sure which parts of the upgrade support exactly can be done away with.
Certainly not the parts that declare functions not-inline, etc.
Most probably not the parts that deal with package upgrade.
But perhaps most of the header, and some of the upgrade magic.

Simplifying upgrade would be a good idea for an ASDF 3.2 branch.
But on the one hand I'm not sure I want to spend time heavily testing
these things on N implementations, as would be required;
and on the other hand I suspect the gains will remain minor,
though worthwhile.

That's would be good exercise for a new ASDF co-maintainer,
if someone volunteers to become one.
Adding it to the (already large) TODO.

—♯ƒ • François-René ÐVB Rideau •Reflection&Cybernethics• http://fare.tunes.org
Anyone who goes to a psychiatrist ought to have his head examined.
                — Samuel Goldwyn