[388] in Release_7.7_team
Emacs 19
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Dorothy Bowe)
Fri Dec 15 10:25:12 1995
To: release-team@MIT.EDU
Cc: miki@MIT.EDU
In-Reply-To:
Date: Fri, 15 Dec 1995 10:25:06 EST
From: Dorothy Bowe <dot@MIT.EDU>
Okay everybody, let's sit down and face the facts. We've been talking
about upgrading to emacs 19 for a least a year now but have dragged our
feet because "it's different". Well, as Mike correctly pointed out, we
are now faced with the reality that we have to update and our only
choices involve how to upgrade with the least amount of pain.
Let's also get some facts out on the table so that we make a decision
based on something other than feelings. I've been using emacs 19 for a
while now and have noticed a few changes. I'm sure I could make a list
of things in 15 minutes or so. Gary, *what* breaks in your dotfiles?
It's hard to fix unspecific problems, but I'm sure your files will be
useful in testing.
We've been upgrading third party software packages for a few years and
while everything has not been 100% smooth, people do adjust. Like it or
not, emacs is a commercial package, and we're way out of date.
The rest is just my humble opinion and not to be confused with that of
ACST, the F_Ls or any other acronym representing a team in I/S.
* Skip the DCNS locker. Emacs 19 has been installed in a locker for a
long time now, and most of the people who want to use it probably
already know about it.
* Get emacs 19 out on the packs as soon as we can, whenever that is. If
it's not IAP, we still have to get it out there.
* Get a couple of people working on things like
- Overview of changes
- Stock answers
- Posters
* At the risk of stating invoking all the historically pessimistic
daemons, let's try one more time to get Solaris 2.4 and Emacs 19 out
to a wide field of testers as soon as possible in the spring. We're
going to find more problems from actual users.
* Once we have some information ready, put an obnoxious message into the
startup with specific dates and a pointer to that information. (We're
good at obnoxious messages; just look at FrameMaker.)
* Start preparing ourselves; we are not going to catch every problem
before it hits the field, and maybe this won't be quite as neat and
clean a switch as we'd like in an ideal world. We can still make it
happen in a reasonable manner.
dot
"Historical Pessimist but Modern Realist"
