release 0.7.0

[dwalton76]

@WasabiFan I think you said there is one more tweak to make to the README but it is waiting on a PR for the docs to go through correct? After that I think we can do a release.

[WasabiFan]

Ok, sounds good. I am waiting on a review/merge of ev3dev/ev3dev.github.io#237 so that the README isn't confusing to new users. After that, I think this'll be ready.

[dwalton76]

These are the items that are currently in the changelog for 0.7.0

• Drop python 2.x support.
• Performance improvements for reading/writing sysfs attributes.
• Updates for breaking ev3dev kernel changes.

Should we mention that many demos have been added? They are not installed as part of the package but in the changelog we could point people to https://github.com/rhempel/ev3dev-lang-python/tree/develop/demo I think we should add this to the changelog but I am biased as I did a lot of work on the demo programs. Proposed text:

• Added many demo programs including BALANC3R, MINDCUB3R, EXPLOR3R, TRACK3R and EV3D4. A touchscreen web interface is available for tank robots, see EV3D4WebControl. The demo programs are available at https://github.com/rhempel/ev3dev-lang-python/tree/develop/demo

Other things to add:

• support for ev3dev kernel 4.4.15-13-ev3dev-ev3
• Added ev3dev/helper.py which includes classes for Tanks, Motors, Web UI controls, etc
• Added ev3dev/GyroBalancer.py for robots that use a gyroscope to balance on two wheels

[dlech]

Should we mention that many demos have been added?

Not in the debian changelog. If there is another changelog, then sure, mention the demos if you like.

[WasabiFan]

Should we mention that many demos have been added?

We should definitely advertise them, whether it is in the changelog or somewhere else. If it's in something version-specific, we should make sure to link to the version of the tree at the release tag instead of master to make sure it works in the future.

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Also note that the important kernel version number is the 13; the rest of it is specific to the platform. So, we should say "-13-ev3dev kernels".

[WasabiFan]

The dependency that we had on ev3dev.org content has fallen into place, so I have opened #209 to update the README accordingly. Once that is merged we should be ready to go.

[dwalton76]

On a related note....anyone know why the demo programs never shipped as part of the package? If we want people to try them out or reference them it would be much easier if they were installed via the package to somewhere like /usr/share/ev3dev-lang-python/

[WasabiFan]

I think it's because they are not essential to the library core, so one generally doesn't want it to install unless explicitly requested (especially now that there is JavaScript in that folder as well). You're right, though; it would be nice to get them into people's hands without hassle. Maybe a separate python-ev3dev-demos package?

[WasabiFan]

Once this new version is merged, I think we should switch the default branch to master so that people see the repo as it was at the last release by default. Thoughts?

[dwalton76]

That's kinda what /usr/share/ is for though (docs, examples, etc)...but we are close enough to doing a release we can figure out exactly how to get the demos out there after this.

[dwalton76]

I think we should keep it at develop because that is what we want folks to make pull requests against. If we switch it to master someone will dev something against it unintentionally and will then have to rebase to develop and go through merge conflicts.

[WasabiFan]

I think we should keep it at develop because that is what we want folks to make pull requests against.

OK, that makes sense. We need to make sure that people don't look at new content and get confused, though. I, for one, often open up a GitHub repo to look up line numbers in error messages, and when repos have their default branch set to something other than the most recent release it can get confusing. Let's leave it like this and see how it goes.

[dlech]

https://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/ch-docs.html#s12.6

[WasabiFan]

I've drafted a release for v0.7.0 here (only viewable by project collaborators). I included the content of that release description below as well. Other than #221, is there anything else that we need to do before releasing? We should start to think about when we want to align with semver and call a release 1.0.

To perform the actual release, we'll need to merge develop into master (and use the --no-ff option to force a merge commit, or do it through a PR) and then hit the release button to create the tag. Once we have created the release tag, someone will need to go through the process of publishing the Debian package from that tag.

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This release brings with it a bunch of bug fixes as well as major interface changes to the motor API to become compatible with the newest ev3dev versions.

The release highlights include:

• Support for -13-ev3dev and newer kernels
• New base classes for common types of robots
• Fixes for BrickPi support
• Performance improvements

You can see a list of all the changes that have been made in the changelog. Note that this release includes changes from both the v0.7.0~rc1 release and the current 0.7.0 release.

[ddemidov]

May be add a link to the kernel announcement where the changed to the motor API were made?

[dwalton76]

I get a 404 on the change log link. Other than that it looks good to me.