use Perl

• The problem with that mechanism... (Score:1)

  by Alias (5735) on 2007.12.17 20:21 (#59498) Homepage Journal

  Is that many people are trained (and thus find it "intuitive") that the first number communicates the "stableness" of the module.
  
  0.xxxx vs 1.xxxx etc
  
  What does a date mean? What information can be gleaned "at a glance".
  
  

  Reply to This

  • Re: (Score:2)

    by schwern (1528)

    Is that many people are trained (and thus find it "intuitive") that the first number communicates the "stableness" of the module.

    You're right, and it's a false connection. In fact, 1.0 is often the LEAST stable, you want 1.01. And then everyone has different ideas about what an integer version jump should mean, case in point this comment about Text::Metaphone 2.0 [perl.org].
    
    And then does that mean *API* stability or *bug* stability?
    
    For me the 0.x -> 1.x jump is API stability and future integer jumps usually coi
    • Re: (Score:2)

      by drhyde (1683)

      A good compromise would be to use X.YYYYMMDD then, where X increases whenever the API changes incompatibly.
      • improving software version schemes (Score:1)

        by markjugg (792)

        I like the spirit of the original post, but agree with drhyde that API stability changes are also important to communicate.
        
        Too often cruft is added and software becomes more complex in the name of "backwards compatibility". I've done it.
        
        Something like the use only [cpan.org] system seemed like a good idea to address this, but it never caught on, and I admit to not adopting myself.
        
        Perl 6 has some related features built-in, but it will be a while still before that's ready for production use...
      • Re: (Score:2)

        by schwern (1528)

        Problems with that.
        
        1) 8 decimal places edges into the realm of floating point error.
        
        2) It has the string vs float problem.
                2.20071220 is different from "2.20071220".
                Combined with #1 this can be trouble when comparing versions.
        
        3) The meaning of X is still arbitrary. Even if the user realizes that it
                indicates stability, specifically API stability, is 3 incompatible with 2?
                Which ever answer yo
        • Re: (Score:2)

          by drhyde (1683)

          wrt floating point error, just chop the 20 off the year. I'm gonna be dead by the time it matters, so I don't care :-)