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I couldn't disagree more.  Especially with VisualWorks time-boxing has caused problems with quality and delivery of functionality.  Fundamentally there is no point putting out a release for the sake of it. A release is about functionality, both new functionality and bug fixes.  Without either of these there is absolutely no point in releasing anything beyond marketing.  Yes, during a release one can make the call that because a subset of the functionality will arrive much later than the rest of the functionality it makes sense for that late functionality to slip the release and arrive in a later one.  But that doesn't imply putting out an essentially empty release for the sake of promptness.

One thing I do approve of is maintennance releases, where some time after an initial release one puts out a maintennance release that only contains bug fixes and no new functionality and I think there are good arguments for and positive experience with scheduling the maintennance release to arrive at some fixed time after the first release, e.g. 4 to 6 months.  But major releases must IMO be driven by content.

best

Eliot

 

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