On 1 May 2014 14:47, Peter Simons <sim...@cryp.to> wrote: > Hi Bjørn, > > > Now that I've switched to the NixOS 14.04 release I see nixos-version > > printing "14.04.42698.54a7d1d (Baboon)". It is impossible to tell if > > that is close to release date or hundreds of commits later... > > well, is the number of commits that have happened after the release date > a particularly meaningful information? Suppose that number is "18". What > does that tell you? Why is it important?
Hm, that was actually a bit difficult question to answer :-) I think the reason I want this is the same reason we have version numbers in the first place; because it's easier for humans (me!) to use/remember. Knowing that it's 18 commits after 14.04 is easier to relate to than that it's 42698 commits since the very beginning. Also, the current scheme looks a lot like MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH, but it doesn't act like it: PATCH is never reset to zero, unlike other projects I've seen. So it feels a bit odd to me. (Personal opinion, I agree!) We could of course have used a master branch and stable1/2/3 with no tags/release numbers at all, and rely on git to find some meaning behind commit id "version numbers". But I guess we all agree that *that's* not a good idea! Also, if we switch to a "git describe" like version number (*and* have git annotated tags for releases), "git describe" in nixpkgs would be much more meaningful. Made up example from an alternative (near future?) nixos world: $ nixos-version 14.04-18-gabcd1234 $ cd nixpkgs $ git describe 14.04-20-gdefg5678 # Ah, my checkout is two commits ahead! Compare with current situation: $ nixos-version 14.04.42698.54a7d1d (Baboon) $ cd nixpkgs $ git describe fatal: No annotated tags can describe 'e4690a7a79153ce3d8989fb442c1f0f5ef534b44'. However, there were unannotated tags: try --tags. Ok, so my checkout is at e4690a7a79153ce3d8989fb442c1f0f5ef534b44 and nixos is at 54a7d1d. Fire up git to see where that is, and whether it's a single commit difference or hundreds of commits... Best regards, Bjørn Forsman _______________________________________________ nix-dev mailing list nix-dev@lists.science.uu.nl http://lists.science.uu.nl/mailman/listinfo/nix-dev
