On Mon, Jan 3, 2011 at 8:27 AM, Gabor Szabo <szab...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> So I'd change that to "after a production release of a Perl 6 compiler"
>
> I think I'll include both answers.
> If we learn that people desperately need a 1.0 numbering then the
> Rakudo developers
> can make up their mind to either change the numbering scheme or invest more
> in education of the users. Maybe pointing out that after releasing
> 2011.01 you can't release 1.0. :)

Not much chance of "educating" users. Release numbers have more or
less established standard meanings. It is impossible or impractical
for someone to be "educated" about the idiosyncratic numbering scheme
of every product they use. That's why there are standards, even if
they are informal. The "1.0 = ready" standard is well established in
the FOSS world (it even gets a paragraph in ESR's The Cathedral and
The Bazaar). People are not wrong to expect that "1.0" is the sign
that the product is ready and that 0.x means that it's still in a
state of flux.

FOSS numbering standards go further than that. It is extremely common
that products be numbered X.Y.Z where Y even indicates "stable
version" and Y odd indicates "development version". Perl 5 switched to
this numbering scheme years ago precisely because people were familiar
with it and understood it.


> ps. In Padre I try to stick to the "increase by 0.01 and not jump to 1.00".
> It is surprising how many people tell us "I'll use Padre once 1.0 is 
> released".
> I can't even imagine how many people think the same but don't tell us.

Look at it from my point of view: I don't have time or energy to join
the Padre development list and track its progress in order to decide
for myself if it is ready for use. I certainly don't have the time or
energy or inclination to do that for every single software product I
use.

I will make exceptions for software that has a very long history. I
have no doubt that Emacs and Vi are stable, so I don't care what their
numbering scheme is. But for stuff that is new enough to make me
wonder, I will tend to wait for 1.0.

Daniel.
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