Hi, in addition to Pascal's great summary, you can also have a look at the Semantic Versioning web site:
https://semver.org/ Cheers Kambiz ----- On 27 Nov, 2020, at 15:47, Pascal Bourguignon p...@informatimago.com wrote: > Hi! > > Le 27/11/2020 à 13:51, Marco Antoniotti a écrit : >> Hi >> >> Sorry for the general noise, not necessarily related to the issue at hand. >> >> I know I am a P.I.T.A., but I kind of concluded that versions of the kind >> >> YYYYMMDD >> >> Are better than >> >> major.minor.small.itsy.bitsy.bit >> >> What do you think? > > > Well, using a timestamp as version number is not as informative for the > user as the semantic major.minor.bug version number. > > The usual meaning being that: > > - the major is incremented when incompatible changes to the API are > made: users updating from one major to another should expect to have to > invest some work to upgrade their stuff for the new version. > > - the minor is incremented when compatible changes to the API are made > (additions to the API, or change, with a compatibility layer provided): > users updating from one minor to another can expect to only have to > recompile their stuff for the new version, if at all, and no more work. > > - the bug is incremented when bug corrections are made, without any > change to the API: user updating from one bug to another can expect > total compatibility and no work at all on their part. > > > Instead of that, if you use a timestamp as version number, you now have > to keep metadata, such as what versions are LTS (long term support), or > other such attributes. This works for whole distributions, but not for > single libraries. > > > -- > __Pascal Bourguignon__
