Why the Cobra isn't released?

[Zmeeed]

It seems to me, there should be an accurate policy. For example, freezing in half a year, catching of bugs and release of the stable version. I am assured that many are frightened off by lateness of the next release. The project looks thrown or rotting at first sight. Many will be too lazy to look once again.

[Charles]

These are good points. I haven't cut a release in a long time mostly due to lack of time, and in part due to the ease with which it can be installed from source. I think with some proper set up, I could automate most of the release work which would enable more frequent releases, and that's been something that I've been thinking about lately.

[Zmeeed]

I am glad that you agree with me. I don't hurry you. While I learn to program on the Cobra, I quite will accept any version.

[Charles]

Thanks. My "right now" task is a bug reported by dwilliamii regarding the use of a specific generic type from a specific library. It's an interesting one.

[nevdelap]

Hi.

I reckon you should remove the current and previous releases section from the downloads page and just point people straight at the Install from Source Control page since as Zmeeed says it is currently making the project look dead for people visiting the site for the first time and probably causing them not to investigate further to find in the forums that it isn't.

So I mean, with a little quick and easy cosmetic change to the website you can alleviate the symptom until you get time to fix the problem. (Having a release that is.)

Maybe it could include a tidy version of the commit log somewhere to show the continuing progress to people who haven't delved any deeper than browsing cobra-language.com yet.

[Charles]

Sounds good. I'm jammin' on a client project right now. I'll take a look this weekend.

[carlosqt]

Hi there,

It should be good to have a new release. Latest one is from: 2010-10-18
Previous releases could be moved to a single link named: Archives then all the list.

Also, don't forget to make the new release .NET 4.0 compatible to avoid using the IL change framework target hack to do so.

Just some ideas.

Carlos

[Charles]

Wow, this is our most popular post in awhile. I'm glad to see the interest.

I will be moving this month which, as you know, is time consuming. The next release will be in April. I'll mostly likely do one for .NET 2/3/3.5 and another for .NET 4. After that, I'm guessing we'll only need to support .NET 4.

I expect to have more time for Cobra after my move.

Thanks for your comments and feedback.

[BrendanSimon]

One advantage of official releases is that it gives the impression (rightly or wrongly) that the releases have been tested for production (or at least tested more thoroughly than a source snapshot). Regular (~weekly, ~monthly, ~quarterly, ....) official releases show progress and confidence in the product.
It would also give you something to put in your news section on the home page (last item is dated 2008) and announcement forum

[Charles]

You meant 2010 right? http://cobra-language.com/

I agree regular releases are needed. They will start after my move which takes place at the end of this month.