I note that on the release notes for 2.4 it states
"SGPro 2.4 requires a stable, but not yet released version of PHD2"
What does that mean exactly??
It seems to imply that SGP uses (relies upon?) an unstable guiding program but that cant be right can it?
I ask because its been raised by a colleague who is interested in using SGP and I wanted to be able to ease his mind bu this phrase has me a little confused.
You have to use a specific version of PHD2 that is a development snapshot. It fixed some of the server issues between PHD2 and SGP.
The version is āeā or newer.
DaveB,
Iām not sure where you are getting the idea that the builds are unstable. If you know of any instabilities, please report them on the open phd guiding forum and we will make every effort to fix them and put out a new development build with the fix as soon as possible.
We (PHD2 developers) do not make point releases very frequently because it is a time consuming task that requires coordination from all of our translatorsāPHD2 now supports 11 languagesāand coordinating all those translators is not easy.
The latest builds at http://openphdguiding.org/snapshots.html are in fact more stable than the last point release, 2.4.1, because the development builds contain fixes for bugs reported in 2.4.1. New features are also put in the development builds, but in the unlikely case where a new feature introduces a bug that destabilizes PHD2, we fix it right awayāwithin hours or even minutesāand put out a new development build.
Unfortunately, somebody even mentioning that some software is unstable without any basis can cause people to go running for the hills. We have all been burned by misbehaving software causing loss of precious imaging time and want to avoid that at all costs. I have spent an inordinate amount of time helping users diagnose problems in the official builds which turn out to have been fixed in the development snapshots.
I think PHD2 has a very good track record for stability, and we take bug reports very seriously and having the development build series gives us a vehicle for getting bug fixes released quickly to our users.
Andy
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Agreed. PHD2 development builds are very stable.
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Not my confusion Andy.
Ive used PHD2 for a while and have no issues at all and love it and think you guys do a great job.
However the SGP notes for release 2.4 states it ārequires a stable but not yet released version of PHD2ā and for some this could be read (indeed has been interpreted as such by some friends) that a stable version of PHD2 has not yet been releasedā¦it might be worth re-wording the statement to say version 2.4 requires version āeā or above rather than the current wording to avoid any confusion??
Thanks, Dave. Iām glad you are finding the PHD2 development snapshot series releases to be stable.
I probably overreacted in my response because I mistakenly thought you were saying the development builds were unstable without actually having used them. My bad.
The disconnect probably revolves around the term ānot releasedā (Ken did say āstableā!) I would say that anything on the page http://openphdguiding.org/snapshots.html has been released and would encourage anyone to use those builds. We in PHD2 may need to rethink how we number the builds and present them since it is clearly becoming a source of confusion.
Andy
No problem Andy 
ā¦keep up the good work!
Its definitely the ānot yet releasedā phrase that has the potential for causing confusion.