# Would slowing Julia's release cadence improve ecosystem quality?

**URL:** <https://discourse.julialang.org/t/would-slowing-julias-release-cadence-improve-ecosystem-quality/103114>\
**Category:** Community\
**Created:** [August 22, 2023, 8:24pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/would-slowing-julias-release-cadence-improve-ecosystem-quality/103114 "2023-08-22T20:24:20Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 20

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**Author:** ![aplavin](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/aplavin/32/222056_2.png) [@aplavin](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/aplavin)\
**Post date:** [August 23, 2023, 9:45am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/would-slowing-julias-release-cadence-improve-ecosystem-quality/103114/20 "2023-08-23T09:45:46Z")

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> [@ChrisRackauckas](#):
>
> Manifests are versioned to specific Julia versions, so using them on a different Julia version isn’t guaranteed to work.

Yes, manifests are julia version-specific (although this isn’t really well-known ime), but pinning package versions for better reproducibility can be done with Project.toml alone.

> [@ChrisRackauckas](#):
>
> If a newer version of a package uses a feature from a newer Julia then you wouldn’t expect it to work.

I wanted not to conflate different meanings of “compatibility” and only talked about “update julia - keep all code (including package code) the same”. Sure, there are other scenarios like “a new package version should only compatible with new julia” but this is an independent story.

> [@ChrisRackauckas](#):
>
> I should be able to go to Julia v1.7 and `]add RandomPackage` and just expect to get a working installation

Again, this is a completely different meaning of compatibility, not the one I’m talking about.  
This one seems easier to fix, you just need better tooling to test lower bounds. There is some, but it’s not polished nor advertised, eg:

> [@Forward compatibility and stability of Julia vs. Packages](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/forward-compatibility-and-stability-of-julia-vs-packages/97968/48):
>
> I tried playing with this kind of compat testing for my packages, but buyin is critical — doesn’t make sense to do that for a small subset. See [oldnew\_compat.yml · GitHub](https://gist.github.com/aplavin/ec1024d00db6ebe8a7fa0a38aa8cca6c) for a github action example that tests for either oldest/newest versions of each dep, or for all versions from oldest to newest.

Meanwhile, “Julia updates breaking existing package code” doesn’t seem easily fixable.

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