dev meeting 20231129

3.12.0 release postmortem; release process: present, future (@emillon)

• in our current release process, we make minor releases (like 3.12.0) off main. Because there was a relatively long time between the time 3.12.0-alpha branched off main and the time 3.12.0 got released, some changes not intended for 3.12.0 had been merged in main. So 3.12.0 contains changes that know about 3.13 language.
• 3.12.0 should not be used. it has not been published to opam-repository. 3.12.1 has been created (on the usual 3.12 branch) with reverts to the problematic PRs.
• moving to a release branch model should prevent this: instead of making the release from main, we do it from a dedicated branch (equivalent to the one we call 3.12.0-alpha today)
  • @nojb: this is how ocaml/ocaml and many other projects do it
  • @rgrinberg: releasing should not disrupt the dev cycle too much
  • @Leonidas-from-XIV: branching times should be communicated in advance
• we will try this approach for 3.13

Examples directory (@Alizter)

• our examples/ directory is confusing because it uses cram syntax, but is marked as data only so they don't run
• this piece of feedback comes from a new user so this is rare and valuable feedback
• how do we expect these examples to be interacted with?
  • it's useful to have them in a terminal and play with them
• examples in the rst docs serve a similar purpose
• @emillon to write docs about cram tests

Specifying branches for repos (@Leonidas-from-XIV)

• there's an ambiguity if a name like a branch is passed: to resolve it, it is necessary to connect to the git repo
• when name is a branch or tag, a call to the network is expected (and lockfile will record just commit)