N00b here, what's going on with the new versions? I seen theres a 28 and 29 now, are they both gonna come out, or is one already out? I am confused

I've only been using Emacs since 27.2, and I'm excited about new versions, but I am confused as to what's going on/what's in them. Thanks for the help!!

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/23045242/understanding-emacs-versioning-system

they are simply two non-stable releases.

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28 has native-compilation. 29 adds pgtk (pure-gtk, which includes Wayland support). They're both usable, but things move more quickly the further ahead you are. I ran into some minor issues with a couple of packages using 29. They weren't even bugs really. It was just some functions being replaced and so forth, and it's pre-release software, so you can't expect package maintainers to be running around the kitchen trying to keep up with changes that aren't even final yet. So I backed up to 28 and haven't had any problems with it. Go ahead and try it out if you're impatient (like me). [28.0.92](https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/emacs.git/snapshot/emacs-28.0.92.tar.gz)

Awesome, thanks

they ARE releases. What you talked about is stable release or production release. But releases can also be alpha, beta, RC, etc.

I guess my question is why is 29 being worked on if 28 isn't out yet? I don't know how to ask this without sounding rude or something but I am asking out of curiousity

my guess is that feature set for 28 is frozen. new features are not going to be added to version 28. So those are getting added for 29.

Software is rarely "complete". There are either bugs which remain or features which may be requested. You can think of versioning as a tool to communicate the programmer's confidence of the stability of the software. With Emacs, you are free to build off the latest version of the source code. That, naturally, tends to be the least stable. It's where development begins. Experiments are being carried out, bugs are unintentionally being introduced, other bugs are being worked out (29, because that's the next major version). The next most stable version is a pre-release version (28.0.X). It's almost ready for release. All the features for that version have been frozen and the goal is to only address critical bugs. More users are encouraged to test everything to aide in making the release more stable. Once that point has been reached (that's up to the maintainers), a stable release of 28 will be made. Unfortunately, some bugs are bound to lay dormant until a wider audience tries the "stable" release. As those bugs are fixed, a new minor version of the stable release will be made. e.g. 28.2.0. It's a convention for communicaton.

There are only bugfixes done on the 28 branch until it's stable enough to release. No more new features are added there. 29 is the bleeding edge version where the new features go.

Mine has been working exactly like I want it to for a while now, so it's about time somebody comes along and breaks everything.

This is also how Ubuntu development works. The moment a release is made, the repositories are cloned and renamed for the next distro.

27 is the latest released version. 28 is the latest unreleased version. 29 doesn't mean anything, it's just "master". It was bumped after the 28 branch was cut.

How do you notice an Ubuntu user? He's gonna bring up his distribution as soon as there is even remotely a way to do so

Emacs 28 is currently in release candidate status. It's on a separate branch in git, and as people are testing it, only bug fixes are applied to the Emacs 28 branch. Development of any new features is happening on Emacs 29.

Trufax.

27.2 is the current release 28.0 is in final pre-release; it will be the current release rsn 29 is the development master/nightly. This will probably be released in 2023/4; it is likely to have some rough edges and all ELPA/MELPA packages are not guaranteed to work

This is typical software development practice. You need to draw a line in the sand for a release - no more features, only testing and bugfixes, otherwise you're trying to stabilize a moving target and you will never release. That's where 28 is. Any feature development therefore goes into 29, including features which didn't make the cut for 28. So naturally there's work going on on both.

How do you know someone’s a pilot? He tells you.

The next stable release of Emacs will be cut from the emacs-28 branch. In the current prerelease status when we build from that branch we are building Emacs 28.0.92, the third pre-release tagged. Once a first 28 stable release is "cut" it will be 28.1 and fixes or important enhancements to that may become part of an 28.1.90 that can eventually then be cut as 28.2. Meanwhile, more significant changes are planned for the next major release, for example, PGK support. After Emacs 28 is stable a new branch will be created for 29 as it stops taking major enhancements and starts working toward pre-release status, maybe a year or so from now. An as good-as-yours guess is that Emacs 28.1 will exist within a month quite possible that's several weeks "pessimistic" but also that I'm being optimistic. EDIT: had a version incorrect before