On Sat, 16 Jan 1993 15:00:52 -0400 Lydia Fish <FISHLM@SNYBUFVA> said:
 
>>I  would like  to  see documentation  of new  features.  Eric has  just
>>introduced some  very valuable  improvements with  the new  Digest= and
>>Topic= headers
>
>I may have missed the announcement  of the date of the implementation of
>the new features, but  when may we expect to have  them available on our
>local LISTSERVs?
 
You need to distinguish between "When will version 1.7f be released?" and
"When will I be able to use  feature X for my ABC-L list?". Your LISTSERV
maintainer  is  the person  who  can  best  answer the  second  question:
sometimes the code  is available everywhere else but  cannot be installed
at your  site yet  for one  reason or another,  sometimes it  hasn't been
released  as part  of an  official version  update but  is available  for
testing.  "Active"  LISTSERV  maintainers   generally  subscribe  to  the
LSTSRV-L list and know what  features are available as development fixes,
or then alpha or beta-test version  updates (think of it as various types
of "previews"  of the code for  selected sites). If your  maintainer is a
busy type and  you know he doesn't read LSTSRV-L,  he probably won't want
to install early-release code and you  will probably want to wait for the
official version update before asking.
 
So, when  will version  1.7f be  released? You will  not get  an accurate
answer  to such  a question  unless the  code is  about to  be sent  out,
because nothing  is ever released  without a serious  beta-testing period
(usually 1-2 weeks). If many problems show up, the beta-testing period is
usually extended  until a  good solution  is found  to all  problems. And
problems are not always bugs -  for instance, when LISTSERV became faster
than the  VM mailer this created  an operational problem for  a number of
sites,  and operators  had to  be told  to start  watching mailer  queues
rather  than   LISTSERV  queues.   Last  minute  suggestions   are  often
incorporated during beta-testing as users  become acquainted with the new
functions and provide feedback, and in  fact this is the reason why major
enhancements  such  as  the   digest/index  functions  are  usually  made
available  as development  fixes  - so  that  the beta-testing  programme
doesn't drag on forever.
 
As far as 1.7f is concerned, there are still a couple things I would like
to add before I start thinking about releasing it, and the speed at which
I add things depends  mostly on what other things I  have to do (LISTSERV
being  a spare-time  activity). This  means I  can't even  tell you  when
beta-testing will  start, although this  will probably happen  before the
end of next month.
 
  Eric