Will there be more frequent updates?

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8 comments, last by gjl 5 years, 4 months ago

Hi! I don't see this question asked a lot, so figured I'd jump the gun and just ask. The last update for Angelscript was in December of 2017, while the current WIP version has a whoooole lotta fixed goodness in it. It would be cool if there were more frequent updates every couple months since there's always some good (and sometimes necessary) fixes in. I can imagine some updates along the lines of 1.32.1, 1.32.2, etc.

While my personal projects always use the latest WIP version for stability sake (there's some critical refcounting fixes I needed), our game Heroes of Hammerwatch is currently still on 1.32.0 which doesn't have these fixes, as we're only really updating with every stable update.

Is there anything stopping 1.33.0 to release anytime soon, or more frequent 1.32.x versions to appear? Is there anything we can do to help speed up this process, eg. collaborate on code/testing/QA? Or would you recommend using the WIP version either way, even if stability is a priority?

(Ps, I'd love to contribute code via something like Github pull requests, but since Angelscript is on SVN, it's a bit harder to share patches. Have you thought about switching to Github? I think it might've been asked before, but it [hopefully] doesn't hurt asking again :))

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It's a fair question, and one that I've thinking about for quite some time already.

Before 2017 I decided to make less frequent releases as each release were becoming too small, and the act of releasing a version was taking up proportionally more time. However, I think a year between each release has proven a bit too long.

Release 2.33.0 is still a few months away as I have more features planned for it. But maybe I'll take some time to backport some of the bug fixes available in the WIP to 2.32.0 and do an intermediate release.

As for GitHub. I haven't really investigated it much. I have nothing against GitHub, I just personally don't see any gain with moving to GitHub. Though I might set up an official GitHub mirror at one time, if I can automate it.

As for merging patches from contributers as-is is probably not going to happen too often. I accept contributions but I always make adjustments to the code, either to make further fixes, or to adjust the coding style to my own.

If you have any contributions, feel free to send me the modified files by e-mail or post them here on the forum. Patch diff files are acceptable but I actually prefer the full file, which makes it easier for me to use winmerge to review the changes.

Btw, are there any specific bugfixes you'd like to see back-ported to 2.32.0?

 

 

AngelCode.com - game development and more - Reference DB - game developer references
AngelScript - free scripting library - BMFont - free bitmap font generator - Tower - free puzzle game

Completely understandable, of course! :)

Some of the fixes I'm personally required to use the WIP version now is the ones I've reported (of course), and also (I believe it's the one that was causing me troubles): "Fixed problem in compiler that didn't release a temporary variable when passing anonymous object to function expecting ?&in" (It might've been something else, but I had some refcounting issues a while ago that were solved after updating to the latest WIP.)

And of course any of the symbol name resolver fixes (for ambiguous class names etc) are very welcome too.

I don't have anything to contribute at this time, but if Angelscript was hosted on Github, the better accessibility of reporting issues and code contributions would be a great thing to have. Perhaps not many people know how to report Angelscript bugs or how to send in patches, or they don't have or want to make a Gamedev.net account. Github's issue tracker is pretty good for that, and the Pull Requests section makes it a lot easier for people to contribute patches (no need to figure out how to make a diff and then email it, etc.). It also has the diff reviewing like Winmerge directly in the browser, and you can comment on specific sections or just edit their diff yourself. It's a lot more convenient for both parties, in my opinion.

Of course, that would all require you to switch from SVN to git, which of course is also a big decision! But perhaps switching to Github would also increase the amount of people using Angelscript, which would be awesome as well. Github mirrors can be nice, but it wouldn't really add value to the issues/pull requests sections, I think.

I made a mirror on GitHub that's updated hourly. Main purpose is to allow for Angelscript to be added to projects as a git submodule for easy updating. See: https://github.com/codecat/angelscript-mirror

Thanks for sharing. I'll add a link to this on my site too.

AngelCode.com - game development and more - Reference DB - game developer references
AngelScript - free scripting library - BMFont - free bitmap font generator - Tower - free puzzle game

Yesterday was exactly 1 year ago since the last stable update. Maybe it's time for another stable update soon? :D

No pressure ;)

I'm polishing up the WIP version for the release. Just a few minor things to do yet, and some portability tests to perform.

Version 2.33.0 will be out before the end of the year.

AngelCode.com - game development and more - Reference DB - game developer references
AngelScript - free scripting library - BMFont - free bitmap font generator - Tower - free puzzle game

That's great news!! ❤️

Looking forward to it! (Currently using the WIP version)

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