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Re: [Bug-GnuCOBOL] Where is the latest source kept?
From: |
David Newall |
Subject: |
Re: [Bug-GnuCOBOL] Where is the latest source kept? |
Date: |
Mon, 1 May 2017 00:25:00 +0930 |
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Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:45.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/45.8.0 |
On 30/04/17 21:09, Simon Sobisch wrote:
Yes, r1559 is latest but it isn't found in "trunk" but in
branches/gnu-cobol-2.0 (where the actual commit of r1559 is).
Thank you, yes, that helps. I ran "svn checkout
https://svn.code.sf.net/p/open-cobol/code/branches r1559" and got, well,
it's hard to be sure what I've got. Lot's of different branches, it
seems, most of which are well stale. I don't know which one I should
look at; maybe "gnu-cobol-2.0", "gnu-cobol-2.0-debugger", or "reportwriter".
Really, this is untidy and careless. Do you not see a very high risk
that somebody will evaluate the wrong branch and come to an erroneous
conclusion that GnuCOBOL is not fit for purpose? Even worse, they'll
spend considerable effort making changes, only to discover that they
changed a dead-end branch. (That happened to me a year or two ago.)
Don't let GnuCOBOL become TinyCOBOL.
I'm trying to say that this is not a good way to run a project. An
actual unambiguous link to the latest source is not too much to expect,
and the obvious links are NOT that. Clearly much effort has been put in
to GnuCOBOL. Don't let confusion and bad-will be the result of
couldn't-care-less bad links that you publish on the website. That
would be an actual tragedy.
I'm not trying to be rude and I have no brash sense of entitlement. I'm
giving honest, critical feedback, which apparently is very much needed.
GnuCOBOL is a wonderful project but you've laid traps for people who are
not intimately familiar with it. You'll lose much of the audience you
are trying to attract.
You've got clear links titled, "looking for the latest version?" You
certainly need to add, "Looking for the SVN repository for latest
commit?" and have that retrieve just the latest version. Perhaps you
could also add six words for each of the directories in branches,
describing what is what. Can I suggest, as a start, "fileiorewrite:
obsolete detritus; gc-runtime_configuration: obsolete detritus;
gnu-cobol-1.x: last version of gnu-cobol 1.0 (no longer current);
gnu-cobol-cpp: obsolete detritus; reportwriter_history: obsolete detritus."
I believe I have now downloaded the latest GnuCOBOL, but it's not
obvious which of the nine different directories it is in. I've probably
accurately identified five that it's not in, and I could guess
"gnu-cobol-builtin-script: obsolete detritus", but that leaves three
likely contenders. There should be only one.
BTW: There will be a gnucobol-2.2rc.tar.gz in the next days.
I will look out for that, but, I think I can offer greater value to the
project by writing code to fix or improve it, but I was previously
tricked (you know, by exactly these sorts of careless, misleading links)
into working on oc-1.0 when I thought I was working on gc-2.0. It's
taken me a year or two to regain enthusiasm to help. Clearly I'm not
going to waste my time working on something that I'm not sure is the
latest source.
So, although the question should not need asking, and although I already
asked it earlier today, yes I still don't have the answer: where is the
latest version?
I hope I haven't offended anybody.