[isabelle-dev] NEWS

[Makarius]

On Thu, 5 Jan 2012, Alexander Krauss wrote:

> This raises the question what the role of the old "development 
> snapshots" is.

> I have not used one myself for many years, and I think their existence 
> is mostly historic (In the old days, a TUM account was required to be 
> able to check out the CVS repository, so the snapshots were the only way 
> of sharing non-releases with the outside world).

It is not that "old", stemming from 2003/2004 only.  Compared to that time 
it has indeed been de-emphasized quite a bit, there was also much less 
difference between snapshots and proper releases back then.

Right now the build available on http://isabelle.in.tum.de/devel/ has 
still a few virtues compared to a repository clone:

   * tested against regular isatest
   * partly integrated as pseudo-release, e.g. the docs and
     Isabelle/Scala/jEdit are already compiled

One would still need the add-on components, and play roulette with the 
corresponding versions.


> Perhaps the solution is to provide a release candidate early on, 
> together with an announcement of the changes.

In addition to a comprehensive NEWS entry one could post explicit 
instructions on isabelle-users, say when the first "test releases" are 
announced (2-3 weeks before the official release).  Last time I've made 
this public test announcement for the first time, although there was 
hardly any feedback *before* the actual release.


 	Makarius