On Wed, 2002-06-05 at 11:46, Sean 'Shaleh' Perry wrote: > > > > What are the developers' thoughts on the matter? > > > > what makes 1.0 sound better than 0.60.2 or 10.3.1 or ab.de.e.4? In my > experience the only important thing is that you can look at the version and > compare it to the one you have and that there is a new revision somewhat often > (depends on the project for what "often" means). > > I do not believe blackbox is heading for a 1.0 release. Or maybe it will. > Either way it is just one more number in my book. > Actually, it's not so much that 1.0 or 10.3.1 sound better -- for me it's that 0. at the beginning... If a "1.0" version is never planned or never likely, why use the 0. in the first place? Jamin talked of the stigma of a 1.0 release, but in my experience, both personally and professinally, a 0.x release has more stigma as it connotates a lack of stability. Some of my previous employers would never consider installing a 0.x (and typically even a 1.x) version of software based on this stigma.
But this isn't even the point. My main question isn't even so much a criticism of using this practice -- it's actually more one of curiousity. Why choose one versioning/release scheme over another? For example, why would one developer like integer increments (1.x, 2.x, etc.) vs decimal increments? why would one developer prefer alphanumerics for their releases (1.xa, 1.xb, etc.)? What constitutes a reason for changing the numbering or increasing the version (i.e., why go from 6.2 to 7.0, for instance; or from 0.62.x to 0.65.x)? I'm curious in large degree because I've been "professionally" doing web programming for somewhere around 18 months now (and no, I'm not fresh out of college -- this was a career change for me) -- and I'm still trying to determine how I want to do versioning and releases for myself. I use CVS to keep track of my changes (and occasionally roll-back -- oof!) and often tag releases. At the company for which I work, we usually simply tag them with the particular date, a bid number, or project code, or combination of all three. In the end, I realize that the only important criteria is what works for me -- but I'm still trying to determine that -- and discussion such as this helps immensely. Thanks for the responses! Matthew > The other key thing with revision numbers is they refer to a state of the code. > This is why I have not wanted to add new items to the blackboxrc. 0.6x refers > to a version of the rcfile as well. > > If I decided that 0.65.0 would be 1.0 and then went forward with a redesign as > planned should the next one be 2.0? Why count from 1 to 10 when there are so > many more numbers out there (-: > > Knuth's TeX (I believe) is an approximation of pi and every release he > adds one more decimal place.
