Branches

[ricoderks]

@ergonyc is it maybe an idea to setup a separate branch for development and leave the main branch as the branch which has a version number and is always working?

Cheers, Rico

[ergonyc]

@ricoderks Absolutely! We should decide:

1. what its called... e.g. main-dev? I can't recall a github standard off the top of my head...?
2. criteria for minor iterations of the "release" version. i.e. when the main-dev branch gets sufficiently tested and merges into main.

The nascent WIP "roadmap" will map out the major releases... i.e. 2.0 which has "linking" datasets capabilities... so we just need to feel good about what minor functionality we will iterate.

[ricoderks]

@ergonyc

1. I think there often called dev or main-dev. I'am also not sure if there is a github standard.
2. Yes, for sure. I have no experience with this. I'll have a look what kind of criteria's are normally used.

[ricoderks]

Looking into no. 2, I found the simplest is x.y.z

• x is major release
  • This is linked to our roadmap.
• y is minor release
  • Small feature update(s).
  • Important not to break backward compatibility.
• z is bug fixes

To avoid that we release a minor update too often. I would say we collect a few feature updates before we release. Except, if the last minor release is a while ago or the feature request was urgent.

Cheers, Rico

[ergonyc]

@ricoderks
I think we should go ahead and create a main-dev branch. Should we also start a discussion on testing? I hadn't implemented any unit testing, but as things get more it will probably be nescessary... and it IS best practices for a reason.

---

Rough Roadmap: (TODO: publish ROADMAP.md)

• v1.0 (current) - basic browser (main branch)

  • v1.1 (export functions) (to be merged exporter branch)
  • implement unit testing (first as testing branch, then as part of main-dev)

• v2.0 (as soon as late Feb) - cross-dataset linking functionality (main-dev branch)

• v3.0 (future) - integrative / harmonized cross-omics functionality

[ricoderks]

Sorry for my late reaction, me and my family got hit by covid and are still recovering a bit!

I think it's for sure a good idea to also start with testing. In the beginning it is maybe a bit more work, but can save us a lot of work in the long run.

main-dev sounds good! In there we can make maybe different branches for different functionalities we want to add.