[Bioperl-l] Status 0.7

[Hilmar Lapp]

We're rapidly approaching next Monday's deadline for the 0.7 code
freeze. I've indicated on the tasklist where in the sequence of
tasks I define the freeze to be. In essence, to be realistic the
freeze will in fact be a functionality freeze, that is, on Monday
next week all tasks on the list before the freeze should be
completed up to the stage of remaining bug-fixes (i.e. dark
green). Tasks not completed until then are likely to be dropped. 

As I said, bug fixes and documentation additions/fixes (I consider
every piece of added documentation essentially a bug-fix, because
missing documentation constitutes a bug) are exempt from the
freeze. I suggest, however, that these fixes begin immediately
after the freeze, and do not take longer than 1 week. In parallel
to fixing known bugs (known from the bug-tracker) the package
shall be tested on various systems and against the projects we
want to be compatible with (Mac, Win32, Perl 5.004, Ensembl,
bioperl-gui, bioperl-corba, which will certainly reveal additional
bugs/problems. The goal is to have the code branch-ready within
one week after the freeze, the quicker the better.

Just to note the obvious: to keep the release phase as free as
possible from unnecessary interference, I will not accept module
or code submissions from the point of freeze until actually
branching off the release.

The situation actually doesn't look bad, the patchwork carpet is
more and more greenish. The remaining sore points are

	o RichSeq interface, implementation, and adoption by parsers
	  (Ewan)
	o SeqAnalysisParser/SeqFeatureProducer revisit
	  (Hilmar & Jason, Ewan)
	o Transcript/GeneStructure & frame-aware cds()
	  (Hilmar)
	o BioCorba 0.2 interoperability
          (Jason)

Others than the three of us mentioned probably can't sensibly jump
in any of these. However, you can provide support by testing code,
looking through documentation, pointing out errors and
undocumented methods etc, and, <bold>most importantly,
development-wise by implementing tests</bold> which is BTW a good
way of learning the package.

	Hilmar
-- 
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Hilmar Lapp                                email: hlapp@gmx.net
GNF, San Diego, Ca. 92122                  phone: +1 858 812 1757
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