Re: Two questions regarding the :core workflow

[Stefan Monnier]

>  1. I'm thinking ERC could benefit from suffixing our future version
>     numbers on HEAD with "snapshot" or "-git" [1]. This might be helpful
>     for things like bug reports, protocol transcripts, and certain
>     in-band messages, such as /CTCP VERSION replies. Trying this out
>     locally seems to succeed in only building a devel package and
>     skipping a release. Any reason the same wouldn't happen on the
>     production instance?

Can't think of any reason why it wouldn't work the same, no.

>  2. I've been wondering about the :core workflow when it comes to
>     patching ERC releases and iterating on HEAD. I see that "external"
>     packages can specify a separate :release-branch. Assuming such a
>     thing isn't possible for :core packages, ERC would seem to enter a
>     sort of "limbo period" come every (Emacs) release season, during
>     which we're obliged to hold off on applying major changes to HEAD
>     until the next release, like 29.1, has been out long enough for any
>     glaring bugs to emerge. To be clear, this isn't me complaining (ERC
>     has plenty else to concern itself with during such spells). But, in
>     the interest of planning ahead, I'd like to know if this perceived
>     limbo period is a real thing or yet another unfounded hallucination.

It's true that `:core` can't be combined with `:release-branch`
currently.  Maybe it could be fixed, but IIRC it's somewhat risky (it's
likely to fall into some of the problems that have occasionally caused
the state on `elpa.gnu.org` to become weird, preventing the release of
new tarballs until I log in manually and unwedge the thing).
So it's better not to rely on it.

I don't think it implies that there's a strong interaction between Emacs
releases and ERC releses.  The only "limbo period" is when you're asked
not to commit destabilizing changes to `master` when we're about to cut
a new release branch, and this tends to be shortish.  Once the branch is
cut, you can keep making changes on `master` to your heart's content,
more or less, while Emacs's release matures on the branch, is released,
and even while subsequent point releases are made.

It does mean that you can't make wild changes to ERC as long as there's
a chance you need to make a new ELPA release based on the old code.
But you can have wild changes on `master` while at the same time
installing small fixes on the `emacs-29` branch (you just won't able to
make a corresponding stable release ELPA tarball).

Does that clarify the situation?


        Stefan