Discussion: FreeCAD is not ready for 1.0

[vocx]

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This would need some low-level update in the FreeCAD code, ...

And that's the hard part. Somebody in the community needs to step up to do this sort of re-factoring, but we have nobody at the moment who is willing to do it.

For example, Kunda has been bumping the following thread for years in the hope that somebody can revive that project. So far no progress.

Alternative GUI for FreeCAD: Overlayed Layout (Devs needed)

[kkremitzki]

I'm interested in working on that but would need to clear my plate of some existing responsibilities first.

[looo]

For example, Kunda has been bumping the following thread for years in the hope that somebody can revive that project. So far no progress.

I guess you are talking about the gui topic.

I don't think we should work on a massive gui change. This should be part of freecad 2.0 or 3.0. There are endless other optimizations necessary before thinking about massive gui-changes.

In my mind we shouldn't change too much until 1.0. Fundamental changes are always difficult and need to be part of bigger version jumps. One example is the new-style modules/workbenches. Finding a way to introduce them without breaking anything is/was nearly impossible.
So for 1.0 we should not think about changing the currently working system too much. Better to think about possibilities to build on top of the current layer. On the python side there are several topics to adress. Then there are the massive changes from @realthunder which are not yet fully in master. Here is also a lot of optimization possible.

Talking about 1.0 at least means there shouldn't be massive changes shaking up the ecosystem.

Let's make a roadmap for 1.0. Try to fund this roadmap and get it done.

[Zolko]

I'm interested in working on that but would need to clear my plate of some existing responsibilities first.

great news. Are you talking about the musescore UI ?

Case Study: Musescore (FLOSS cross-platform sheetmusic/scorewriter) UI/UX

If I can help in lightening your workload I'd be happy to step in, but apparently you're a forum administrator, therefore the question is not so much about the amount of work but also about the responsibilities, about which other people decide.

Do you already have an idea how you/we/people could improve the FreeCAD UI code to make it more flexible / user-configurable ?

[bernd]

ok than we could jump to 0.91, this is not 1.0! for the next release, it will leave us ten more numbers to 1.0 ...

[vocx]

...
I don't think we should work on a massive gui change. This should be part of freecad 2.0 or 3.0. There are endless other optimizations necessary before thinking about massive gui-changes.

...On the python side there are several topics to adress. Then there are the massive changes from @realthunder which are not yet fully in master. Here is also a lot of optimization possible.

Talking about 1.0 at least means there shouldn't be massive changes shaking up the ecosystem.
...

Thank you! Very sensible comments as always. This resonates with me as well.

Why do we feel the need to bump to 1.0 when we haven't had enough time to test all of realthunder changes? I don't understand. These changes are massive, we need time to properly test many things before thinking about a truly tested and documented 1.0 version. This is why I think 5 years is sensible. After 0.19, we need another year for topological naming and fixes all over Assembly3 and Assembly4. From my own side in Draft/Arch, I would like some serious refactor, and given that it's only a few people doing the job, it takes a while.

The GUI is the least thing I would worry about. Maybe it can be done in Python easily, but if it needs some serious C++ code changes, it will take a while too.

[vocx]

ok than we could jump to 0.91, this is not 1.0! for the next release, it will leave us ten more numbers to 1.0 ...

But why? Using 0.91 means we will definitely have to do ten releases before 1.0.

If we just continue incrementally, 0.24, 0.25, 0.26, okay, now it's ready, 1.0. We do the jump immediately. We don't set ourselves for a definite timeline, we always leave it open, as we don't know what could happen in between. If you set 0.91 then we are more or less committing to that.

[Kunda1]

But why? Using 0.91 means we will definitely have to do ten releases before 1.0.

I don't think that is necessarily implied. I think Inkscape is a good example of this. Take a look at
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inkscape#Release_history

In summary they jump for 0.48 → 0.91.x → 0.92.x → 1.0.0alpha - beta → 1.0.0

[vocx]

...
In summary they jump for 0.48 → 0.91.x → 0.92.x → 1.0.0alpha - beta → 1.0.0

Of course, but what is the point of that?

We could as easily do, 0.21, 0.22, 0.23, 0.24, ---> 1.0.

[bernd]

We just would have a highter version number. Since it would be a circle dependency I do not explain why I strongly would like to have a highter version number for FreeCAD. See first page of this topic ... https://forum.freecadweb.org/viewtopic. ... 61#p370116