[M3devel] M3 concerns

[Randy Coleburn]

I've seen quite a number of m3commit and m3devel messages lately.  Many of these give the appearance of "thinking out loud" with various commits followed by apparent reversals.  In many cases the m3commit log messages are terse and don't give the rationale behind the change.
 
For those of us in the M3 community who rely upon the stability of the libraries and core M3 principles, these types of messages cause concern.  While I appreciate everyone's efforts to move forward, I don't want to abandon the great care that went into formulating this language.
 
Question:  As various people make contributions and changes, is there any group of folks who is verifying that the changes don't break existing code or core principles?  Another idea would be to have a series of test batteries that have to be passed before changes can be accepted.  I know of a number of projects where many people contribute, but the contributions have to be vetted by passing some tests.  
 
Without these types of controls, I fear that good forward progress will inevitably be hampered or compromised by changes made by someone who hasn't completely thought out and tested the ramifications of those changes.  
 
For example, I've tried to get cm3 working for me on Windows XP several times.  I still can't seem to get the "current" system to build correctly on XP.  In the past, I have on occasion gotten the "system" to build, but then some of my programs don't work correctly when rebuilt using the new cm3.  Thus, some changes somewhere have "broken" my code, yet all of my code uses the "safe" subset of the language.  If I go back to my old reliable cm3 version 4.1 (the last one put out before Critical Mass, Inc. threw in the towel), my code compiles and works, even on Windows XP, even using Trestle, FormsVBT, NetObj, cross-platform pickles (e.g., pickles shared between Windows & Unix boxes), etc.!  Much of my code was originally developed under Windows NT, so I think it is a tribute to the original language developers that my code and their compiler work through various OS version upgrades (NT, 2000, XP) and changes to the underlying C/C++ compilers used to build the core components.  
 
I would appreciate constructive feedback on this topic.
 
Regards,
Randy Coleburn
 
 
Randy C. Coleburn, CISSP
Senior Systems Engineer, Communications, Networks, & Electronics Division (CNE)
Corporate & Atlanta Information Systems Security Manager (ISSM)
Scientific Research Corporation
2300 Windy Ridge Parkway, Suite 400 South, Atlanta, Georgia 30339
voice: (770) 989-9464, email: RColeburn at SciRes.com, fax: (770) 989-9497

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