Hi,
I would like to suggest to Mendix to work on a LTS separate from the releases with new functionality. This year I've been working nearly exclusively with Mendix 7 and I've upgraded many times to the latest release in order to fix some blocking issue, just to discover there are new issues introduced.
When working with Mendix 7 there is a lot new stuff improving our lives as developers (such as the REST functionality) but imho there is no LTS, and currently I feel I can't advice anyone to upgrade to Mendix 7 because there is so much unexpected behaviour and bugs to consider.
Therefore, please focus on a LTS, maintain this LTS separate from feature releases. E.g. let every 5th, or 10th minor release, e.g. 7.10.x, 7.20.x, 7.30.x be a LTS version, only add new features in the 7.21, 7.22, 7.23...etc. versions and merge them when another LTS is due, and maintain the LTS version with any bug fixes necessary.
The release LTS interval is merely a suggestion, but I would love a LTS in Mendix 7
With kind regards,
Stephan
Hello Bert,
First, we have been supporting 8.6 as a “medium term support” (MTS) version. It is now at 8.6.7.
The current MTS is 8.12 which is at 8.12.3. This replaces 8.6 as a MTS.
The LTS of 8 will probably be 8.18, at which point Mendix 8 will only receive fixes.
You may recognize a pattern of every 6th minor being supported for a while.
Hi Arjan, any progress yet? I can not find anything about LTS apart from version 7.23. No LTS for version 8 yet?
Stephan, we are going to do what you suggest.
Firstly, Mendix 7 is now in LTS mode and receives only fixes. There will be no 7.24.
Secondly, for Mendix 8 we are not going to wait so long to make a version LTS. There is official decision yet, but you can expect, for example, Mendix 8.6 to be an LTS version which will then only receive fixes (8.6.1, 8.6.2...).
I guess this idea is implemented now!
Update: Mendix 7.23 is an LTS release now. It will only get bug fixes, no new features.
Great idea. More specifically what I like about this idea, is to fix a bug in the release in which it is introduced. And do this in a bugfix-release, meaning increasing the third number of the Mx-version. So if a bug gets discovered in version 6.8.0 it would get solved in the first next bugfix-release of version 6.8. Since 6.8.1 is currently 6.8’s highest bugfix-release, this bug will get solved by releasing 6.8.2. It will also get checked if the bug exists in higher versions so if need be, there will also be bugfix-releases for 6.9 and 6.10: 6.9.2 and 6.10.18. Even in 7, if the bug is there too. Clearly more complex and more work, but it will be a big gain in release-strategies.
Hi Stephan,
Thank you for your great suggestion!
As a matter of fact, we are in the process of investigating the options on releasing LTS version. As you have already summarized this, we also believe that this will benefit our customers.
Kind regards,
Ylber Sadiku