Tentative high-level plans for 7.10.1

[Ben Gamari]

Simon Peyton Jones <simonpj at microsoft.com> writes:

> My conclusion
>
>  * I think we (collectively!) should make a serious attempt to fix show-stopping 
>    bugs on a major release branch.  (I agree that upgrading to the next major
>    release often simply brings in a new wave of bugs because of GHC's
>    rapid development culture.)
>
>  * We can only possibly do this if 
>    a) we can distinguish "show-stopping" from "nice to have"
>    b) we get some help (thank you John Lato for implicitly offering)
>
> I would define a "show-stopping" bug as one that simply prevents you
> from using the release altogether, or imposes a very large cost at the
> user end.
>
> For mechanism I suggest this.  On the 7.8.4 status page (or in
> general, on the release branch page you want to influence), create a
> section "Show stoppers" with a list of the show-stopping bugs,
> including some English-language text saying who cares so much and why.
> (Yes I know that it might be there in the ticket, but the impact is
> much greater if there is an explicit list of two or three personal
> statements up front.)
>
Writing a bit more text sounds like a small price to pay to ensure that
show-stoppers don't fall through the cracks. It's also nice to have a
high-level view of what is being considered for release.

I've added some text for #9439 [1].

> Concerning 7.8.4 itself, I think we could review the decision to
> abandon it, in the light of new information.  We might, for example,
> fix show-stoppers, include fixes that are easy to apply, and
> not-include other fixes that are harder.
>
This seems quite reasonable. 

Cheers,

- Ben


[1] https://ghc.haskell.org/trac/ghc/wiki/Status/GHC-7.8.4#a9439:LLVMmanglermanglestoovigorously 
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