@albrecht-hilker said in Notepad++ v8.3 release:
So why dont you release it marked as a beta version ?
Because this is the sequence that the developer usually follows:
Develop updates
Submit as Release Candidate (RC) version
Wait for feedback from those users who are willing to download a RC version
Iterate 1-2 until no “critical regressions” are reported
Release as official version
Wait for feedback from those users who are willing to download the released version without waiting for auto-update to be triggered (much larger number of people)
Do a faster loop back to step 1 if critical regressions found after #4
If no critical regressions found in #5, then trigger auto-update
The goal is for critical regressions to be found in #2 (the equivalent of “beta”), but not enough users download the RC/beta versions, so sometimes critical regressions are not found until #5. This happened to be one of those cases. Since the developer likes a fast-paced release cycle anyway, he feels that the current process works reasonably well – and the delay between #4 and #7 prevents “too many” people from downloading the release if a critical regression is found within a week or two of release.