On Sat, Jan 15, 2011 at 1:05 PM, NARUSE, Yui <naruse / airemix.jp> wrote: in response to Zeno Davatz: > Your suggestion seems: > * we should release Ruby 1.8.8 > * Ruby 1.8.8 should include the Oniguruma Patch > * The included feature must compatible with 1.9.2 > > I must add one more requirement: > * the Ruby 1.8.8 regexp must be compatible with 1.8.7 > >> Slight off-Topic-Note: Consistency is really important for enterprise >> users. It is really key. I think Ruby should care about enterprise >> users too. Enterprise users are the "grandmothers" of the business. > > I think they are Rails users. > Their answer is showed by Rails 3. I'm definitely not in favor of bringing more 1.9.x features to the 1.8.x branch whether x is 6, 7, 8 or ... But I think what 'enterprise' users are really looking for is a rational relationship between minor versions and breaking changes. viz http://semver.org/ It's water under the bridge, but 1.8.7 introduced several things which broke applications and gems built using 1.8.6. This was a major factor in most rails developers staying on 1.8.6 and Engine Yard taking on the maintenance of 1.8.6. It was also problematic because most re-packagers (like debian/ubuntu and I believe the RPM packagers) take the same interpretation as the semantic versioning described above, so they have separate packages for 1.8 and 1.9, but NOT for 1.8.6 and 1.8.7. By now the breakage caused by 1.8.7 has mostly been healed and Rails and the popular gems have caught up, and app developers for the most part have either updated the app code to be 1.8.7 compatible, or have frozen on 1.8.6 and gone silent. And newly written Rails apps are using either 1.8.7 or 1.9.2. But I'd hate to repeat that history with 1.8.8, it should not introduce changes which break 1.8.7 apps, and it's hard to predict what breaks apps in general, so it needs to take an overly conservative approach IMHO. -- Rick DeNatale Blog: http://talklikeaduck.denhaven2.com/ Github: http://github.com/rubyredrick Twitter: @RickDeNatale WWR: http://www.workingwithrails.com/person/9021-rick-denatale LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/rickdenatale