Re: [Gnu-arch-users] What are version numbers?

[Samium Gromoff]

At Wed, 10 Sep 2003 15:40:36 -0700,
Zack Brown wrote:
> 
> On Wed, Sep 10, 2003 at 03:03:40PM -0700, Tom Lord wrote:
> > 
> >     > From: Zack Brown <address@hidden>
> > 
> >     > It's starting to make sense now. It seems like you really do intend
> >     > there to be a clear relationship between the project version number, 
> > and
> >     > the tla version number. It's just that the tla version number refers 
> > to
> >     > a whole sweep of project version numbers. So tla version 1.0 would
> >     > contain project versions 1.0.1, 1.0.2, etc.
> > 
> > 
> > Yes.
> 
> OK. I'm pretty sure I've got it now. In that case, I have two
> suggestions:
> 
> 1) the nomenclature "version" is a little misleading. I think I would
> have had a much easier time understanding this feature if it were called
> "series". I suggest converting the 'version' nomenclature to 'series' or
> "version series".
> 
> 2) the convention "category--branch--version" doesn't indicate the most
> likely relationship between the three elements. As you've said, it's much
> more likely that 'version' will refer to a version of the category, and
> should thus be bound more tightly to 'category' than to 'branch'. On the
> other hand, nothing is lost by putting 'branch' at the end of that trio,
> because a branch may be split off under any circumstances.

 Damn i was reading the thread and have been barely avoiding to jump in and
to suggest the very thing you`ve just did here.

> Another way of looking at it is in terms of what changes most often. The
> category name is only changed when you go to work on a completely different
> project. So that is the most stable element of the three. The version is
> only changed for a new series of releases, while there can be many branches
> within a given series. Ordering the three elements in terms of least-to-most
> volatile will mirror current versioning schemes (e.g. in kernel 2.6.0, the 2
> is least volatile as the major number, the 6 is more volatile as the series
> number, and the 0 will be incremented most often, as the patch number.).
> This also seems to be a convention followed elsewhere in tla.
> 
> So I suggest converting the naming convention from "category--branch--version"
> to "category--version--branch". And if you accept my first suggestion as well,
> it would become "category--series--branch".

 I absolutely support you.

> I think those suggestions taken together preserve the functionality of tla,
> while adding some good clarity and intuitiveness (downward scalability)
> to the structure.
> 
> Be well,
> Zack
> 
> 
> -- 
> Zack Brown

regards, Samium Gromoff