The 1.82.0 pre-release is ready for testing. The release is scheduled for October 17. Release notes can be found here.
You can try it out locally by running:
RUSTUP_DIST_SERVER=https://dev-static.rust-lang.org rustup update stable
The index is https://dev-static.rust-lang.org/dist/2024-10-14/index.html.
The release team is also thinking about changes to our pre-release process: we'd love your feedback on this GitHub issue.
After a last-minute clippy lint change, there are new builds here:
In the release notes, the Stabilize &raw const and &raw mut operators (RFC 2582) item doesn't link to the actual RFC anywhere. And it's too much effort to read an entire lengthy github thread to try and find a link to it. So it would be better if it just directly linked to the RFC instead of to an issue that quite frankly as a release notes reader I care nothing about.
That's a general thing btw: when reading release notes, it's the RFC that matters, not the github issue. The latter can provide some additional context, but without knowing that the feature even is, that's completely pointless.
We usually link to the actual change taking effect in release notes, but we could also add an RFC link there if it would be helpful. In general, I would be happy to see PRs to the release notes to help clarify them!
Also worth noting, RFCs are not always the best primary source, because the implementation sometimes evolves from what was originally agreed. Ideally, the stabilization report should summarize that, but I'm sure that doesn't always happen.
An extra link to the RFC would certainly be helpful, especially if the RFC does reflect the feature.
In the other case, I think it would be a good idea if there were some kind of writeup that describes the actually stabilized feature.
To take the raw borrow example again: I have an extremely vague idea of what those could be, but that's not nearly precise enough to actually start using it in any useful capacity. And unfortunately, the release notes aren't really helpful on that front.
If you'll permit the analogy, in a sense the release notes read more like a TOC, and less like the actual contents. So in their current form, they're great for getting an idea of what's been stabilized. It just doesn't include the operations manual.
I think the former is the goal for relnotes -- as a giant cumulative list, we keep it intentionally brief. We use the blog announcement for longer content on a few highlights.
For a manual, in this case the reference does have a section for Raw borrow operators. We've also featured this in the (draft) blog post with a larger write-up.
To make a more explicit call for help -- we recently started using issues labeled relnotes-tracking-issue to ask teams to help us write the lines for the release notes, and the blog content as well if that is warranted. We in the release team are definitely not experts in everything that gets noted! But I think it would also be useful for folks with an even further removed perspective to take a look and pitch in as well.
It would be useful to link that bit from the reference from the release notes (even more so than the RFC probably).
I think a link from the "Release notes" page to the "Announcing" blog post would be helpful, as the blog post includes material that in other projects would be described as release notes.
That sounds reasonable, although the timing is a little weird -- e.g. there's no blog published yet at the time this kind of pre-release testing request goes out. The URL is predictable though, and we could share a draft PR link here manually.