[erlang-questions] [ANN] Erlang/OTP 17.0 has been released

[Rickard Green]

On Wed, Apr 9, 2014 at 11:53 PM, Michael Truog <mjtruog@REDACTED> wrote:
> I am glad we have a new release, but there remains a version checking
> concern:
>
> I am a bit concerned the new versioning with 17.0 (not the release
> candidates) doesn't provide the minor release number.  This goes beyond the
> fact the erlang:system_info(otp_correction_package) removal breaks existing
> version checking source code (as was mentioned here
> http://erlang.org/pipermail/erlang-questions/2014-March/077998.html).

erlang:system_info(otp_correction_package) has only existed in one
release candidate. Never in a supported release.

> I
> understand the html doc says "As of OTP release 17, the OTP release number
> corresponds to the major OTP version number. There is no
> erlang:system_info() argument giving the exact OTP version. This since the
> exact OTP version in the general case is hard to determine."
> (http://www.erlang.org/doc/man/erlang.html#system_info-1).  This could force
> the error-prone parsing of erlang:system_info(system_version) to get the
> release candidate number in the future, but the minor release number remains
> missing.  Isn't the minor release number required for support issues, to
> understand what anyone has installed?

No. This since an OTP installation may consist of multiple OTP
versions (in the case of licensed customers this is the typical case).
The set of installed application versions is more interesting
information.

The installation may, however, also consist of other modifications not
associated with an OTP version, be configured in different ways, etc.
In order to get the information we need, we've introduced
system_information:to_file/1
<http://www.erlang.org/doc/man/system_information.html#to_file-1>.
This since an OTP version gives us very little useful information.

> The current documentation wants
> people to make custom OTP_VERSION file in their target system
> (http://www.erlang.org/doc/system_principles/versions.html) but that isn't
> part of the installation, so it is in no way a standard, just an obscure
> detail.

The OTP version can only describe what is installed in the special
case when you build and install the system from one OTP version and
after that do not touch it. It may perhaps be a quite common special
case, but it is still a special case. If you know this about your
installed systems, you can put this information in your installation.
We do however not know that this is the case, and would present false
information to our users if we put the information there.

> How should we deal with understanding what has changed in a minor
> release?
>

I'm not sure I understand this question. Please, elaborate.

Regards,
Rickard Green, Erlang/OTP, Ericsson AB

> Thanks,
> Michael
>
>
> On 04/09/2014 08:24 AM, Kenneth Lundin wrote:
>
> Erlang/OTP 17.0 has been released.
>
> Erlang/OTP 17.0 is a new major release with new features, characteristics
> improvements, as well as some minor incompatibilities.
>
> Some highlights of the release are:
>
> Erlang/OTP has been ported to the realtime operating system OSE.
> Maps, a new dictionary data type (experimental)
> A more natural mapping from ASN.1 OCTET STRING and BIT STRING to Erlang
> types, and other ASN.1 improvements and optimizations
> The {active, N} socket option for TCP, UDP, and SCTP
> A new (optional) scheduler utilization balancing mechanism
> Migration of memory carriers has been enabled by default on all ERTS
> internal memory allocators
> Increased garbage collection tenure rate
> Experimental "dirty schedulers" functionality
> Funs can now be given names
> Miscellaneous unicode support enhancements
> A new version scheme for OTP its applications has been introduced
>
> You can find the README file with more detailed info at
> http://www.erlang.org/download/otp_src_17.0.readme
>
> You can download the full source distribution from
> http://www.erlang.org/download/otp_src_17.0.tar.gz
>
> Note: To unpack the TAR archive you need a GNU TAR compatible program. For
> installation instructions please read the README that is part of the
> distribution.
>
> You can also find this release at the official Erlang/OTP Git-repository at
> Github here: https://github.com/erlang/otp tagged "OTP-17.0"
>
> The Windows binary distribution can be downloaded from
>
> http://www.erlang.org/download/otp_win32_17.0.exe
>
> http://www.erlang.org/download/otp_win64_17.0.exe
>
> You can also download the complete HTML documentation or the Unix manual
> files
>
> http://www.erlang.org/download/otp_doc_html_17.0.tar.gz
> http://www.erlang.org/download/otp_doc_man_17.0.tar.gz
>
> We also want to thank those that sent us patches, suggestions and bug
> reports.
>
> The Erlang/OTP Team at Ericsson
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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