Online Developer Meeting (2023-11-28)

Today's topics

Octave 8.4.0 has been released.
Octave 9 release activities
- 9.1 Release Checklist
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
Clarify changes that should target the stable or the default branch.
- 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?
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.)

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.