why do you exclude 'stable'-guys from the pleasure of getting in touch with new features

Hi,

i enjoy reading Tristan's and Juan's blog from time to time.

Every time i do this i'm enthusiastic about the changes that are
implemented in the development branch respectively the changes that are
merged into the current stable branch.

For example i celebrated the announcement of the autosave feature.  A
deeply missed feature if you write your code with a simple editor and
have to press Ctrl-S everytime you switch back from glade. Another
feature that impressed me is the extended support for composite
widgets.

Unfortunately i have to wait for all these nice features for so long
since i stick to debian stable. Although that means i'm used to compile
newer versions of installed software by my own i don't want to
corrupt my system in a way that i update packages with a lot of
dependencies by hand. Of course i can install the whole gtk+/glib
related stuff in a separate directory tree (/opt or /usr/local) but
i will not going to the 'jhbuild'-hell everytime a new version of glade
is on the market.

So my main question is, why gtk+ independent features aren't merged
into previous versions of glade.

Another question is (less glade related), how do you guys keep your gtk+
system up to date to enjoy those new features i'm talking about. I can't
image that the target audience of new development are only those who
develop on a testing or an experimental distribution. Or is it just my
descision to stick with a stable release of my favorite distribution
that is to conservative and not contemporary any longer!?

I hope i can collect some thoughts upon this message.

Best regards

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