release_guide.pod

release_guide.pod - guide to NQP releases

NQP's development release cycle is intimately tied to Rakudo's release cycle. There is no separate, independent release cycle for NQP.

Parrot releases the third Tuesday of each month; Rakudo will generally issue its own development release soon after the Parrot release (Usually within a few days). To accomplish this, NQP must be tagged for release immediately prior to the Rakudo release.

Steps to create an NQP release

1. Edit NQP's tools/build/PARROT_REVISION file to contain the latest tag of the Parrot repository corresponding to Parrot's monthly release. For Instance, running git tag on an up-to-date Parrot repository will show something like this:

   ...
   RELEASE_3_7_0
   RELEASE_3_8_0
   RELEASE_3_9_0
   REL_0_0_5
   V1

   In this example the latest release of Parrot is 3.9.0, so the string RELEASE_3_9_0 should be placed in tools/build/PARROT_REVISION

   Once tools/build/PARROT_REVISION has been set to the Parrot release, it must not be changed until after the Rakudo release. In other words, we want each monthly release of Rakudo to be able to be built using the immediately prior release of Parrot.

2. Change the VERSION file in nqp:

   $ echo '2012.12' > VERSION
   $ git commit -m 'bump VERSION to 2012' VERSION
   $ git push

3. Tag NQP by its release month ("YYYY.MM")

   $ git tag -a -m"tag release YYYY.MM" YYYY.MM    # e.g., 2011.10
   $ git push --tags

4. Update tools/build/NQP_REVISION in your Rakudo repository to contain the tag you just set on NQP.

   $ cd ~/git/rakudo
   $ echo "2011.10" > tools/build/NQP_REVISION

5. Continue with the Rakudo release since that's currently the only reason to have an NQP release.