[Biojava-l] BioJava 1.1x freeze plans

[Thomas Down]

Hi...

With all the extra functionality that BioJava has gained
over the last few months, I think the time has come to call
for a freeze to changes in core packages, and prepare for a
1.1 release.

If anyone thinks this is a bad time for a freeze, please
let me know.  Otherwise:

In the next few days, I'll start putting out pre-1.1
releases for testing and general use.  If we don't find
too many problems with these, I hope we'll be able to
get a final release out by the middle of next month.

In the mean time, all the standard comments:

   - Please can we see changes to core packages restricted
     to fixing bugs.  If you make a change, please send
     e-mail to the list.

   - The JavaDoc documentation is getting better, but still
     has gaps.  Any contributions to this would be much
     appreciated by everyone.

   - The more testing the better!


Exemptions to the freeze:

Not all parts of the project are at the same stage of development,
and there will be packages marked `experimental' in the 1.10
release.

  - Matthew is actively working on org.biojava.bio.gui.sequence.
    This package is already labelled as experimental.

  - I've been making changes to org.biojava.bio.program.das.
    It seems to be working fairly well now, but it will be
    labelled as experimental since the protocol might still
    change.

  - As a special case, I don't see any problem accepting the 
    circular sequence and location objects (being developed
    at the moment), so long as we have some test cases to
    try them out.

For anyone else who is actively working on a specific package,
could you think about it's current development status, and if
it's still at an experimental/subject-to-change stage, check
in a package.html file (and mail the list) to indicate this.

Happy hacking (and let's make this the best BioJava release ever...),

    Thomas.