Tags and releases

[Hellseher]

Hi,

I know it's not too common to use versioned tags and releases among Common Lisp projects but it would help to improve package distribution via Guix where it's pined to the latest commit which is not convenient to keep up-to-date.

How hard would it be to use versioned tag for the project?

Thanks,
Oleg

[McParen]

Hello Oleg,

thanks for taking interest in the library and making it available through Guix. Adding versioned tags would not be an issue at all, but the situation is that the library has not had any official releases yet. The library is still in development and since it was not packaged by any distro before and the current users (most notably cage/tinmop) have not expressed a wish to have the library versioned in its current state, I have not been doing it yet. I do plan to make actual releases, but at some point in the future, where I am more certain that the external API will not change.

While I could produce tagged releases, I would not do that for every commit, so the tagged releases would cease to be up-to-date after a while. I have not used Guix yet, so I do not know what its usual release cycles are. How often should a package be updated with a version bump to be in sync with the Guix ecosystem?

Regards,
McP

[wmealing]

McParen.. just a heads up.. there are many more silent like myself that appreciate your work. We may not have a lot to say but we are users.

Don't feel like that you're alone on this project, because there are many of us silent who are appreciative of your work.

[McParen]

Hello wmealing, thank you for your kind words. I'm aware of the silent users, it means a lot and you are not overlooked. :) Feel free to participate in any way you are comfortable with. McP.

[cage2]

Hi everyone!

I feel the needs to add my contribute to this thread as I think I am, someway, responsible for the report and maybe is useful to explain why.

In fact i think I am the person that added croatoan to guix and keeps upgrading the package definition.

I tracks the development of croatoan and check if tinmop keeps working with the new version of this library. When tinmop is ready for a new release I update its package definition form and send the patch to the guix teams. Every time (minus the times I forgot it! :-( ), I also send a patch to upgrade croatoan to keeps the library in sync with the software.

I am sorry if this process broke some other person's workflow, to be honest I have not experienced a single API compatibility problem with croatoan in many months, i wrongly assumed was the same for others too.

As a partial solution, if it is useful and you agree, i could post on the project mailing list that I plan to upgrade the croatoan package definition, and wait for any objection.

Bye!
C.

[Hellseher]

Hi,

Thanks that this topic attracted your attention! As @cage2 mentioned there is no strict flow in Guix to have packages updated downstream it's rolling release anyway and trying to keep all dependencies in buildable state as much as possible.

And by having a version tag makes it easy to keep package update with one line of command like guix refresh croatoan -u without searching the latest commit upstream. For me personally version tag in general means (admin and DevOps inside) that the project reached sort of state where everybody may try to use it quite safely, but it's my personal feeling.

Thanks for your work.
Oleg.

[McParen]

Hello,

@cage2

thanks for submitting the library to guix! I wasnt aware that you are maintaining the package. I would tag a new minor 0.x version of the library 1-2 times a year if that would make syncing with tinmop and guix easier.

@Hellseher

Even though updating minor versions to pre-1.0 code does not really prevent breakage from an user pov, I can do that if it helps keeping track periodically, maybe 1-2 times a year, since updating guix for every commmit is certainly not necessary.

Take care,
McP

[cage2]

Hello,

Hi McParen!

thanks for submitting the library to guix! I wasnt aware that you are maintaining the package.

You're welcome! I have to be honest, I have used guix just enough to make tinmop available, but I am very happy that my work was useful to other persons, this encourage me to keep working on packaging! :)

I would tag a new minor 0.x version of the library 1-2 times a year if that would make syncing with tinmop and guix easier.

I have not had any problems keeping in sync tinmop with your development model so far but if you decide to do tag releases i will stick (without issues) with that when releasing tinmop, because this thread seems to show that tagging is a good thing to maintain a more healthy guix environment and expands the opportunity to use this library, and I am OK with both things! :) Bye! C.

[McParen]

Hello Hellseher, hello cage,

as Helleher recommended, I have added a first tagged release v0.1 to the repo today. I guesstimate that I will increment the version and make tagged releases once or twice a year, so I hope that's frequent enough to keep everything in sync.

Regards,
McP

[cage2]

Hi @McParen !

That's great! I will make the guix package to track tagged release then.

Bye!
C.

[McParen]

Hello cage, I've seen that your patch to the guix package has been now applied. Sincere thanks a lot for your support!

[cage2]

On Thu, May 18, 2023 at 01:43:11AM -0700, McParen wrote: Hello cage,

Hi!

I've seen that your patch to the guix package has been now applied. Sincere thanks a lot for your support!

Thanks to you for the library and also to guix people: you made (and keep making) all the hard work, I just assemble a few s-expressions! :) :) Bye! C.