I agree that Andrew should be a whole lot more stringent and clear about version numbers, previews, development blogs, changelogs and what is actually considered a release and what is not. Here’s my take:
- What is on the Rack release/purchase page is what is actually officially released.
- The changelog in the repository describes what was produced, and can be tested if you like, but not necessarily released.
- Same goes for the downloads page.
- Same goes for the development blog.
Of course, Andrew could have simply “forgotten” to release v2.6.0 but I doubt it, that hasn’t happened before, but what has happened many times before, is a preview version that was never released, because of problems people reported that needed to be fixed first, and I do remember people complaining about problems with 2.6.0.
In a really disciplined world you do it like this:
You have one or more development/testing channels/logs/blogs/pages, where you produce builds for people to try out and report back. They will be called things like product-3.9.1-alpha1, product-3.9.1-beta3, etc. When you think it’s ready you produce product-3.9.1-rc1 (rc == Release Candidate), which is the “last chance to find show-stoppers” build.
When you think it’s good enough you release product-3.9.1, which is ideally identical to product-3.9.1-rc1 except for the version number. This is the released version and you proclaim that loudly in your release channel/twitter/blog/whatever.