Online Developer Meeting (2024-05-28)

• Date: Tuesday, May 28, 2024 @ 18:00 UTC Convert timezones here!
• Location: https://meet.jit.si/octave-dev

Today's topics

• We've used just 483GB of our 4000GB Digital Ocean outbound data transfer limit so far in May. We could consider (limited?) distribution of default branch builds for testing purposes.
• Timing for next bugfix release: Expected by now, but delayed again because of bugs(?) - do we need another release candidate?
  • We do not need another RC. TODO: @jwe to do release.
  • Some discussion about release-candidates: we generally do RC only for 9.1 but not for 9.2, 9.3 etc.
    • This is now documented in https://wiki.octave.org/9.1_Release_Checklist
    • TODO: Does that checklist have a template? We should update that template...
• Using Octave 10 (or 11?) to introduce the string class and other changes that will break backward compatibility without the usual two-release deprecation period.
  • Most seemed to feel that trying to maintain both via switches or
  • TODO: strings branch ASAP
  • TODO: @jwe to make posts/wiki whatever track/identify isuses
• GSoC
  • Brief introduction to the three summer projects.
  • Note: focus on classdef.
• Octave in MSYS2 (binary distributor for Windows MinGW)
  • Idea was to consider *adding* Octave to their project
    • this *might* decrease our maintainence efforts for Windows.
      • this is currently taking at least several hours per week.
    • but it is perhaps too fast-moving for us, as they do rolling releases
    • perhaps does not give us a .exe-based installer.
      • MXE is about cross-compiling from Linux to Windows
      • MSYS2 is about building **on** Windows
  • aside: don't bring back 32-bit binaries: MSYS2 is about to stop shipping that too.
• OctConf
  • Rik to continue thinking about San Fran for now.
• Use of config.h / octave-config.h in Octave header files. What symbols belong in octave-config.h?

Previous topics

• Timing for next bugfix release
  • potential blocker(?): bug #65605: Octave call to function figure(); results in segfault with Qt6 6.7.0
  • jwe creates release candidate (see: Release candidate for Octave 9.2.0 available
• GSoC projects
  • 8 applications
  • Selection the day after the meeting
• OctConf 2024
• Roadmap and priorities for Octave 10
• Discuss a potential timeline for native string class support
  • Blocker: Inability to save classdef objects to files. Potentially realizable in incremental steps:
    • Implement a low-level HDF5 interface that is usable from .m code.
    • Implement saving double arrays in Matlab-compatible -v7.3 format in .m files.
    • Implement saving in that format for other types (including classdef).
• Should we make and distribute nightly builds for Windows for the default branch?
  • Traffic from Digital Ocean limited to 4 TB. (Higher monthly rate if exceeded?)
  • Probably no additional nightly build configurations for now.
• Octave in MSYS2 (binary distributor for Windows MinGW)

See also

• Next meeting: Online Developer Meeting (2024-06-25)
• Prev meeting: Online Developer Meeting (2024-04-23)