8.0 Release plans

[jasongrout]

We are well on our way to an 8.0 release. The milestone is at https://github.com/jupyter-widgets/ipywidgets/milestone/30

I've tagged backwards-incompatible issues/PRs in the 8.0 milestone with a label. I consider those criticial blockers for 8.0. Other issues/PRs could come in an 8.1 if needed since they are not backwards incompatible. Please let us know if you think otherwise, or if you feel an issue/PR has been mislabeled.

Since JupyterLab 2.0 (shipping by Feb 2020) requires ipywidgets 8.0 (and not ipywidgets 7.x), I suggest we have a tentative release date of the first or second week of February.

Update: We have now released 8.0.0rc2 (5 Aug 2022), which we anticipate being the final RC release. Items still to do:

• Review PRs in the cookiecutter to help authors porting widgets to 8.0:
  • Automatically set public path widget-cookiecutter#103
  • Update packaging to use more modern python practices widget-cookiecutter#87
  • Note in our migration guide these PRs to help widget authors incorporate their changes as they upgrade their packages
• Add release on GH
• Add blog post

[jasongrout]

FYI, JLab just released an RC, so it will probably be about a week until JLab 2.0.

[vidartf]

Let's try to do a call (this week) to evaluate the backwards incompatible changes that have already been merged, and whether any need to / should be reverted before 8.0. Given that 8.0 is now a requisite for lab 2.0, we might want to give it a double check, as my initial understanding would be that we would have longer to evaluate the consequences of those changes.

[jasongrout]

How about Wednesday at 8am PT?

[jasongrout]

I think some of the more controversial changes (like the rewrite of the data layer) has been postponed past 8.0 given the tight timeline we are on. My guess is that we won't have to revert anything, it's more a question of how much more to merge in.

[vidartf]

How about Wednesday at 8am PT?

I have a conflicting meeting at that time, and I'm not sure the reset of @jupyter-widgets/jupyter-widgets has noticed :)

[vidartf]

I think some of the more controversial changes (like the rewrite of the data layer) has been postponed past 8.0 given the tight timeline we are on.

I think you are right, at least on the Python/spec side of things (that matters the most w.r.t. stability).

[jasongrout]

@jupyter-widgets/jupyter-widgets, @zerline, and anyone else interested in participating: I propose that we have a weekly meeting (30-45 minutes) to maintain momentum towards releasing 8.0 in the next month or so.

Anyone interested in joining, please mark times that work for you at http://whenisgood.net/9eftj5s

[jasongrout]

CC @ibdafna @mbektasbbg - please see the message above about a weekly meeting

[jasongrout]

I think some of the more controversial changes (like the rewrite of the data layer) has been postponed past 8.0 given the tight timeline we are on. My guess is that we won't have to revert anything, it's more a question of how much more to merge in.

For completeness - we released a new version of the jlab widget manager compatible with ipywidgets 7.5 and jupyterlab 2.0, so the time pressure is off for shipping ipywidgets 8.0 with jlab 2.0.

[vidartf]

Note that if we were to have it bi-weekly, we could have it in the same slot as the Voila call (alternating weeks).

[jasongrout]

Since there are no times that work for the three people responding to the survey, let's try @vidartf's idea, and try it in the Voila meeting timeslot in the off-weeks from the voila meeting.

Looking at https://voila-dashboards.github.io/, that would mean the first meeting would be 9:30-10:30 PDT Monday, March 30, 2020.

Would that work better for @zerline or @jupyter-widgets/jupyter-widgets?

[zerline]

Ok for me

[vidartf]

Note that the voila meet is specified in central EU timezone that switched to DST this weekend, but @jasongrout specified the call in PDT above, so I'm confused what time we are operating with here.