Add ROADMAP document

[steveej]

Contributes to #125.

/cc @squaremo

[jonboulle]

peanut gallery, this seems a bit uselessly vague. how about an estimated timeline and/or at least some high level goals for the milestone releases?

[steveej]

Yep, would be good to have some real content ;-) I was wondering if we shall do a mix of roadmap and changelog, opinions?

[jonboulle]

I think there's enough in the milestones to extract a few highlights to put here

[fnordahl]

s/artefact/artifact

[jonboulle]

as a non-American, I think this is fine http://grammarist.com/spelling/artefact-artifact/

[fnordahl]

Ah, all good then. We learn American English here in Norway. Sorry about the noise. O:-)

[jonboulle]

lgtm for now

[tomdee]

I'm happy for this to be merged but can we agree that this roadmap hasn't had much discussion (that I'm aware of) so we should be afraid to change it future? I worry that once it's committed we're somehow committed to it.

[jonboulle]

I for one certainly wouldn't consider it set in stone

[steveej]

I'm happy for this to be merged but can we agree that this roadmap hasn't had much discussion (that I'm aware of) so we should be afraid to change it future? I worry that once it's committed we're somehow committed to it.

It hasn't had much discussion. I assembled it from different conversations, including the recent meetings but also OOB discussions, mostly with @squaremo. It's a first impression and I'm certainly not saying this is how it has to be. As always, it's a start.

@squaremo for the sake of mentioning you, I might as well ask you to take a look and comment on the items. Feel free to merge if there's nothing to be changed for now.

[squaremo]

Nitpick: I don't think "Increase" needs a capital letter here.

[squaremo]

I sympathise with Tom's concern -- an explicit roadmap represents a commitment (whatever one says in the front matter). However we do need to balance that with taking some responsibility for making progress.

Perhaps we can compile the roadmap this way:

• start with what happened in previous releases
• include proposed (and ideally, discussed) headline issues for one minor version ahead
• end with aspirations for the next major release

These are all present already -- nice! The difference is that 0.4 and 0.5 would be elided (but may be discoverable from github milestones, which are understood to be provisional). WDYT @steveej @tomdee ?

[steveej]

The difference is that 0.4 and 0.5 would be elided

I have been trying to keep issues/PRs to an undefined but limited count to allow a more frequent release cycle, represented in the ROADMAP as well as the issue management.
With your suggestion, would we put these planned changes to the 1.0 milestone? Once released, then create the previous milestones and move those items back?

[squaremo]

No capital needed for "increase"

[squaremo]

Thanks @steveej and commenters!