On Mon, Jun 19, 2000 at 04:38:21 -0700, Simon Marlow wrote:
>
> Ok, here's my proposal for the version numbering issue. I think we should
> bite the bullet and fix the numbering scheme to something sensible now, even
> though it means changing version 4.07 to be called 4.08. Any objections?
Cool, I'm seeing light at the end of the tunnel... (hopefully, it's
not a train... :-))
> Stable releases are named
>
> x.yy.z
>
> where yy is even, z is the patchlevel (omitted if zero).
Is there a reason, why omitting z if zero? Making the version number
*always* a triple "x.yy.z" is a) more consistent, b) easier to parse
(you can rely on having three dot-separated fields and c) additionally
a good break, since version numbers up to now are only pairs like
"x.yy", so you can just say "Oh, version is not a triple, so it must
be a GHC from The Dark Ages(tm)" and continue accordingly.
> patchlevel changes are *strictly bug-fix only*, so we
> don't bump the __GLASGOW_HASKELL__ version. No change
> to the policy here, except that we've screwed up a couple
> of times in the past :) Patchlevels don't break binary
> compatibility, i.e. you can upgrade your compiler a
> patchlevel without breaking anything.
Agreed.
> Unstable versions are named
>
> x.yy.preYYYYMMDD
well, I've no _really_ strong arguments against it, but is there any
good reason I've missed for having anything but numbers (and the dot
for separation) in a version? It's perfectly sufficient, and I've
always wondered, why people did sth. like the above... (Remember, now
an even middle number is indicator for a stable version, so _that_
particular argument is void now).
BTW: if version numbers should contain alphabet chars, they'd be called
"version alphanumerics", right? ;-)
[agreeing with rest of proposal]
Oh, and might I bring the switch `--numeric-version' (for
example, emits just "4.09.20000609" on a single line) into scope...
Cheers,
Michael
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