Online Developer Meeting (2023-12-19)

• Date: Tuesday, Dec 19, 2023 @ 18:00 UTC Convert timezones here!
• Location: https://meet.jit.si/octave-dev

Today's topics

• Octave 9 remaining release activities
  • Blocking bugs
    • Change in BLAS/LAPACK condition number for `inf (2,2)`. Should we disable tests for this feature to avoid confusion that something is wrong with Octave, while we work on a strategy for this?
    • Windows Terminal problems
      • Apparently the Developer option fix may not be readily visible for everyone? see https://octave.discourse.group/t/bug-octave-freezes/5097/9
      • Do we have enough detail to create a useful report upstream at https://github.com/microsoft/terminal/issues ?
  • Translation files
  • First names or abbreviated names in `contributors.in`?
  • `-fsanitize` and other checks on code
    • Should leaks be analyzed in Discourse thread or a Savannah bug report?
  • Approximate date for release candidate

• Octave coding guidelines
  • Need refresh as recommendations are out of date
    • Line length
    • Break return type of function and put on separate line for class methods within class definition?
    • `enum`, `struct` style not particularly clear or documented
    • #ifdef indentation and styling

• Public roadmap discussion.
  • Example: https://github.com/nelson-lang/nelson/blob/master/ROADMAP.md
  • Example: https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/projects/ruby-master/roadmap
• Proposal [from cbm]: set aside last 15 or 20 minutes to hack on the bytecode interpreter.
  • JWE asks questions, rest of us file issues or take notes.
  • Example: last meeting something came up about int types...
    • perhaps we can find a few more "low hanging fruit"
  • If nothing else, a few of us will spend a few minutes trying the interpreter.
  • Or could spend time trying to break testing the experimental terminal widget to start generating a buglist

Previous topics

• 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.)

See also

• Next meeting: Online Developer Meeting (2024-01-23)
• Last meeting: Online Developer Meeting (2023-11-28)