[Buildbot-devel] require python-2.5 on the server in Buildbot-1.0?

[Dustin J. Mitchell]

On Thu, Sep 4, 2008 at 9:51 AM, Kai Blin <kai.blin at gmail.com> wrote:
> Don't know about the software Mark was talking about, but I'm a firm believer
> in "if it ain't broken, don't fix it". So I see why one wouldn't switch to a
> newer version of python without any technical reason.

This is, of course, an age-old question.  The competing claims are: If
you don't upgrade frequently or at all, then when you find a bug, you
won't be able to get support, and the upgrade (e.g., from Python-2.3
to 2.6) will be more painful than several incremental upgrades.  On
the other hand, if you do upgrade frequently, you will spend time and
energy solving otherwise avoidable problems (think of the fun of
running a Gentoo system).

We see things from both sides with Amanda -- lots of people are still
using Amanda-2.4.x (we just released 2.6.0p2).  This works fine for
many of them, until they hit one of the thousands of bugs we've fixed
since then.  Of course, we're not issuing patches for 2.4.x anymore,
so the only recourse is to upgrade.  On the other hand, our
early-adopter users have uncovered a number of bugs in 2.6.0 for us
(hence the two patch releases..).

I think the middle-of-the-road approach is to trail the bleeding edge
by a fixed amount.  For Python, that may mean the release before
current (so 2.5 right now).  It means you upgrade just as frequently
as if you were following the bleeding edge, but avoids the pain of
being an early adopter.  This is also in line with Python's official
support model.

Dustin

-- 
Storage Software Engineer
http://www.zmanda.com