:mega: New EAP Program open, along with new plugin and plans moving forward with IDE support :mega: ...

# ktor

[hhariri]

📣 New EAP Program open, along with new plugin and plans moving forward with IDE support 📣 https://blog.jetbrains.com/ktor/2021/02/03/say-hello-to-ktor-early-access-program-and-new-plugin/

[christophsturm]

is the eap developed in the master branch?

[hhariri]

As per the blog post and page, it’s both main and EAP branches. We can have multiple EAPs simultaneously.

[Oleg Yukhnevich]

@hhariri
Regarding this statement

In regards to experimental APIs, as of version 2.0.0 of Ktor, these will be limited to EAP versions. We will no longer be shipping APIs marked with the @Experimental annotation in release versions.

Am I understand it right, so in future in ktor 2.0.0 there will be no experimental APIs in stable releases?
So new features, will be experimental in EAP and then go or not to release?
Isn’t it will push new features away for a while, that are not yet polished, as ktor has predicted release dates?
Im just interested, why ktor go in another way comparing to stdlib and other kx libs

[christophsturm]

ok after reading the article it was not clear to me what exaclty the relationship between main and eap branches is.

[christophsturm]

or are there eap branches for things that may never appear in main because they are just experimental.

[hhariri]

@Oleg Yukhnevich It won’t minimise anything in that sense. We just want to make it easier for folks to understand and know where they stand. We will be working on new experimental APIs in the EAP and encourage people to use them. Based on feedback incorporate or not. When it comes to release, know that what is in there will be supported.

[hhariri]

@christophsturm We will do the necessary merging as needed. The point here is that at times we may be ready to start working on something that requires a major or minor version change and have that EAP ready for it, and create that branch. We just don’t want to tie ourselves to having to delay work because of semver, if that makes sense? But rest assured that everything will always end up available in the release.

[hhariri]

Btw, this is the plan in terms of what we have in mind. If we feel that we need to adjust based on how things go, and your feedback, we will. Our goal here is to support and advance Ktor.

[christophsturm]

ok so main always tracks the next minor version? I mean it could be also the other way around and main has all unstable changes and there is a 1.5.x branch

[hhariri]

We release off of the main branch. So main branch will always contain the stable vNext. Whether that is a major, a minor, or a patch. Does that make sense?

[Ian Arbuckle]

Fantastic to see you guys reach this milestone and looking forward to trying this out!