[Mono-list] Has Mono delivered?

[Jonathan Pryor]

On Thu, 2006-01-12 at 05:42 +0000, PauloMorfeo at portugalmail.pt wrote:
> Dave Murphy wrote:
> > but for that to
> >really work the developers working with (not on) Mono need to be
> >convinced to use the stable release and stop tracking the development
> >ones.
>
> That's a question that really interests me!
> But how do i "use the stable release and stop tracking the development
> ones"? Which versions are the development ones and which ones are the stable
> ones? I'm in the process of switching from my laptop to my desktop. Which
> version of mono shall i install in the desktop, considering i have maximum
> stability in mind?
> As far as i can see,
> http://mono-project.com/Downloads
> the "development" and the "release" (suposedly the stable one!?) and the exact
> same. There seems to be a great indefinition about what's stable and what's
> developmental quality.

That's because we confused the definition of "stable."  Stable can mean
"continues to work properly," and it can mean "doesn't change much."

As it happened, the 1.0.x series didn't have a fully functional
regression test system (many of the tests didn't work, for various
reasons), so there was little way to guarantee the first definition.
The development 1.1.x series got properly working regression tests
(which still don't test everything), which made following the first
definition more tenable, but since it was the development series the 2nd
definition wasn't followed (*everything* changed, for performance,
stability, correctness...).

Fortunately, the 1.1.13 release is intended to be a longer-lived stable
branch, as it will be shipping with the next SuSE release, and will need
to be supported for at least 7 months.

Consequently we do have a stable release now, 1.1.13, and the later
1.1.x releases can be considered to be development releases.

Hopefully once 1.2 is released we can have *real* stable/development
parallel releases again.

 - Jon