On Wed, Feb 26, 2003 at 06:08:00PM -0600, William A. Rowe, Jr. wrote: >... > But what version? Stas pointed out last night (on irc) that you can't just do > an APR version test for 0.9.2 because we've defined the version as 0.9.2 > (-dev) > for a very long time. > > It seems that this should become the 0.9.3 release. Can everyone else > accept that numbering?
No. The next release is 0.9.2. As Justin points out: the -dev flag (well, the APR_IS_DEV_VERSION symbol) is the marker that says we are not at 0.9.2 right now. We use that marker to distinguish between formal releases and what is in CVS. That can and should remain the practice. Skipping release numbers would imply there is some formality to those interim version numbers when their isn't -- they are arbitrary points of the code as seen in source control. If people don't like the test, then we can code an AT_LEAST macro. Justin suggested a four-param version, but that isn't right. The macro should only have *two* parameters: major and minor version. There should be no API changes in the patch level, and the "is dev" flag should never enter into the picture. If you're testing for a minimum of 0.9, then 0.9-dev won't satisfy it. Hmm. Well, the above is related to a macro used for API change detection. If an application is seeking information on whether a bug has been fixed, then it must use a runtime check. Because of the possibility for sliding in an out binary-compatible libraries, an application cannot rely on compile-time versioning checking if they are deciding to work around a bug or not. In the pre-1.0 releases, where we're a bit fuzzy on API compatibility, then the two-param AT_LEAST macro isn't going to be all that helpful. Too bad, as we should not be burdening our long-term strategy and API with stuff to compensate for issues that arise *before* we even reach a 1.0 state. If the current state is unsatisfactory, then the answer is to move rapidly towards a 1.0 release. At that point, any API change will have an easily detectable compile-time checking mechanism. Cheers, -g p.s. I'll capture some of this commentary in our versioning doc. commit coming up... -- Greg Stein, http://www.lyra.org/
