Re: [Caml-list] OPAM: retiring 3.12.1 testing?

[Anil Madhavapeddy <anil@recoil.org>]

On 16 Feb 2015, at 18:52, Adrien Nader <adrien@notk.org> wrote:
> 
> Hi,
> 
> On Mon, Feb 16, 2015, Anil Madhavapeddy wrote:
>> Dear OCaml list,
>> 
>> We are currently testing the following compiler versions on every pull request to OPAM;
>> 
>> - OCaml 3.12.1
>> - OCaml 4.00.1
>> - OCaml 4.01.0
>> - OCaml 4.02.0

My apologies -- there were a couple of typos in my original mail.  I meant that
we are testing *opam-repository* with the above versions, not OPAM itself (which can
be tested on a much bigger set of compiler versions).  Also, we are not currently
testing 4.02.0 with packages, just 4.02.1, as the slow compilation speed of 4.02.0
makes it impractical to do so.

>> We will shortly have to test 4.02.1, and would also like to test trunk snapshots of the
>> compiler as an "allowed failure".
>> 
>> Running 6 compiler revisions per package puts quite a bit of stress on our Travis CI
>> resources, and so it's probably time to retire OCaml 3.12.1 from the testing matrix.
>> 
>> Before we do this, I'd like to get a sense for how many people still care about ensuring
>> that their packages work well on the 3.12.1 series, or if there are still distributions
>> for which this support matters.  If there is still sufficient interest, we can continue
>> to support 3.12.1 for some time.
> 
> For yypkg/win-builds I've done a quick survey of what's in Linux
> distributions. I was mainly interested in moving past 3.12.1
> compatibility for my own code but found it undoable before the end of
> this year or maybe early next year.
> 
> Ubuntu 12.04 has 3.12.1 and is still supported and widespread. 14.04 has
> 4.01.0 but isn't very old. Debian has a similar combination for its
> versions. I think 4.02.0 wasn't picked by linux distributions with
> long-term support (including RH if I'm not mistaken).
> 
> 3.12.1 is really widespread and I think it has to be kept for a fairly
> long time. 4.00.0 is basically never used. 4.01.0 is widespread and will
> be widespread for some time. 4.02.0 is nowhere to be seen. I believe
> 4.02.0/1 and maybe 4.02.2 won't be picked up either (unless 4.03.0 takes
> close to two years to be released).
> 
> I'd say: keep 3.12.1, 4.01.0, 4.02.whatever-is-the-most-recent (because
> that's what ocamlers use) and trunk. Dump the others (i.e. 4.00.1,
> 4.02.0).

I agree with this assessment, although I'll try to keep 4.00.1 as long
as possible to make it possible to have finer grained constraints and
make bisection tests easier.  Thanks for all the feedback, everyone!

Anil