[LLVMdev] Validating LLVM

[David Greene]

On Monday 10 November 2008 15:49, Óscar Fuentes wrote:

> IMO a validation process based on running test suites is not enough. As

Not enough for some, I agree.  For others, it helps a lot.  It would help us
tremendously, for example, but then, we do maintain our own branch.

> you know very well, tests can demonstrate failures, but can not
> demonstrate correctness. An approach based on having stable (bug-fix
> only) and development branches is more adequate. This way, each user can
> devote work to validate LLVM for its own purposes, apply fixes to the
> stable branch and then have some hope of achieving a point where LLVM is
> good enough, instead of an endless upgrading where you fix known bugs
> while knowing that new ones are being introduced.

A stable and development branch would also help.  You still need to validate
the stable branch, however.  So I think the proposal still applies regardless
of how the repository is organized.

> This conflicts with current practice of going forward at full throttle,
> when it is not rare that developers recommend using ToT just a few weeks
> after a release.

Right.  It would be a shift in development process.

> Hopefully when clang matures new requirements on middle-term stability
> will be enforced.

It's hard to "enforce" anything in the open source world.  That's something 
that third parties just have to come to understand.  So we should try to
introduce processes that can help achieve what we want without depending
on anyone else to conform to our idea of how development should happen.

                                               -Dave