[Pkg-javascript-devel] babel7 in a separate package ?

[Jonas Smedegaard]

Quoting Pirate Praveen (2020-02-25 10:59:11)
> On 2020, ഫെബ്രുവരി 25 10:59:35 AM IST, Xavier <yadd at debian.org> wrote:
> >I think we should publish babel7 in a separate node-babel7: some 
> >package require old babel 6 for build. OK?
> >
> 
> It will need maintaining two versions of babel which we should try to avoid.
> 
> We can have babel 7 in experimental and try to update all packages 
> currently using babel 6 to build with babel 7. Basically how we do 
> every other major version update. At the least we should evaluate how 
> many packages are affected and compare the effort required for both 
> approaches.

I haven't looked at the numbers but just blindly assume that we are 
talking about hundreds of packages needing migration here, each 
requiring a "real" package upload (binNMUs are not supported for 
arch-all packages) and often require patches or changes to patches 
(unlike C library bumps only exceptionally needing changes to code).

I agree that we should not _maintain_ more than a single release of 
babel: We should have Debian _release_ with two major versions of babel 
concurrently!

What worries me is that _all_ users of babel must switch _together_ - I 
fear that it is too complicates, because of the likelihood of many 
unrelated bugs appearing together.

Please package babel7 as a package independent from babel6, and have 
both in unstable concurrently, but also make sure to file a big fat RC 
bug against babel7 to ensure that we don't want to maintain it in a 
release.

Then, when enough packages have switched to support babel7, we can move 
that RC bugreport to be tied to babel6 instead, so that we instead push 
out any packages failing to align with the new World order of babel7.

I find that a much nice development approach than "let's have the whole 
World of babel7 perfected in experimental, and then BOOM! switch over to 
unstable - hoping for zero collateral damage in that revolutionary 
move".


 - Jonas

-- 
 * Jonas Smedegaard - idealist & Internet-arkitekt
 * Tlf.: +45 40843136  Website: http://dr.jones.dk/

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