Online Developer Meeting (2023-11-28)

• Date: Tuesday, Nov 28, 2023 @ 18:00 UTC Convert timezones here!
• Location: https://meet.jit.si/octave-dev

Today's topics

• Octave 8.4.0 has been released.
• Octave 9 release activities
  • 9.1 Release Checklist
  • Continuing progress with language checks and translations
• Consider reverting the removal of the configure flag that allows disabling the bytecode VM?
  • Background discussion: https://octave.discourse.group/t/the-role-of-the-disable-vm-evaluator-flag/4934
  • JWE will try to add ifdefs for this
  • It was discussed to make this activity as a bug report to help tracking
• Clarify changes that should target the stable or the default branch.
  • No universal guidelines, generally ask whether it absolutely needs to be in stable without introducing new problems
  • Importance of impact, if any: does it make a difference whether it addresses a crash vs addresses something minor?
  • Importance of frequency, if any: does it make a difference whether the bug is commonly encountered or rare?
  • Size of code change, if any.
  • When to graft changes from default to stable?
• Clarify what should be part of reviewing a change before pushing it to the repository. Any difference for changes to the stable or the default branch?
  • No all-use guidelines, but avoid compiler specific code, platform specific code, and in general ask why something is written this way
• Decide on criteria for which bugs should be fixed before 9.1.0 release
  • Tag all bugs which meet criteria with Planned Release of 9.1.0
• Default to Qt6 for Octave 9? Also for MXE Octave? That raises minimum requirements for compiler (C++17) and target platform (for Windows: minimum Windows 10 64-bit, see post on discourse).
• Enable polymorphic allocators by default (C++17 feature)? Might prevent Octave packages from building if they set a lower C++ standard. (Known example: the ltfat package does this currently, adding -std=gnu++11 to its flags, preventing it from being built as-is with polymorphic allocators.)

Previous topics

• Release activities
  • Final release of Octave 8.x before merging default to stable? (23 commits to stable since Octave 8.3.0) Agreed
  • Merge default to stable in early November? Agreed
  • Major bugs? Blockers? None mentioned
• November online event? Nothing new mentioned
• GSoC payment timeline? Same status as a month ago, no change
• What can be done to improve distribution for macOS?
  • references:
    • https://wiki.octave.org/Octave_for_macOS
    • https://github.com/octave-app/octave-app-bundler
  • Need Mac users to test Octave installation process, and use that feedback to improve the Octave wiki page on installing Octave on Mac.

• Future of the bytecode interpreter (https://octave.discourse.group/t/future-of-the-bytecode-interpreter/4940)
  • Make them both converge in future. Keep both lines of development open in parallel for now. Don't merge too quickly. Be prepared for having to port features from one to the other. Make the bytecode interpreter NOT call the tree evaluator at all.

See also

• Next meeting: Online Developer Meeting (2023-12-26)
• Last meeting: Online Developer Meeting (2023-10-24)