On Apr 5, 2011, at 1:42 PM, Aidan Van Dyk wrote: > Sure, but if you want, the "feature" you can provide can be something like: > pgtap-1.0 (or any of pgtap-0.2{0,1,2,3,4}). > > And if your package is backwards compatable, it could even provide: > pgtap-0.25 > pgtap-0.24 > pgtap-0.23
I see, I get it. > And that also means that you don't have to screw every body over when > some future pgtap-123.45 is no longer compatible, and the extensions > have relied on "$VERSION > 0.23" meaning they'll work with it. I see. > I mean, PG itself is an example. Does pg > 8.4 mean your code will > work with all future (or even past, but > 8.4) PG versions? I see. So the extension author can more easily tell users when compatibility has been dropped for something. That makes sense. > As someone who has had to try and deal with "package versions" for > dependencies in RPM and DEB, and been through the hell that is open > source package variants, all with the ability to turn on/off features > at configure/compile time, a just versions even with <, <=, =, >=, > > all mapped correctly isn't good enough. Yeah. The use of an implicit >= in CPAN modules has been a decent 90% solution, but it does cause headaches for people that they can't express things better. The ability to do so would require a mini-language with more operators, precedence, grouping, etc. > Of course, I'ld love for extension in 9.1 to provide a basic > provides/features for my extension to give, but if that train has > already left the station, I don't have much choice ;-( Yeah, but the way it is doesn't break the ability to do it later. I suspect that Dim and Tom will be thinking about it for 9.2. Anyway, your post helps me to understand things better, and so I'm less insistent about imposing a version numbering scheme now (though I still think it would be more useful to have one than not). Best, David -- Sent via pgsql-hackers mailing list (pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org) To make changes to your subscription: http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-hackers