Version comparison semantics (was: [rfc] six-month stable release cycles)

[Ben Finney]

Daniel Clemente <dcl441-bugs at yahoo.com> writes:

> El dt, ago 04 2009 a les 12:09, Matthew D. Fuller va escriure:
> > This can cause ordering problems with tools. Packaging systems may
> > well be of the opinion that "3.5M1" is 'newer' than "3.5".
> 
> And also with people. Most people won't know what that M means. 3.5M1
> looks similar to 3.5.1 when you don't understand the M.

Right.

I'm firmly of the opinion that it's far simpler (technically) *and* far
better communication to simply have the version string monotonically
increasing, with normal alphanumeric sequencing.

Don't make me guess (or, worse, keep remembering how your project
differs from various others) what order “3.5”, “3.5.1”, “3.5a3”,
“3.5a3dev2”, “3.5rc4”, “3.5rc4pre1”, “3.5m2”, etc. should go in. Make
each version string *obvious* in its comparison semantics by avoiding
any special tokens that break the ordering.

-- 
 \                 “What's another word for Thesaurus?” —Steven Wright |
  `\                                                                   |
_o__)                                                                  |
Ben Finney