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

[Pau Aliagas]

On Fri, 12 Sep 2003, Samium Gromoff wrote:

> > That's also policy. If we are changing anything it has to be to let the 
> > user decide. It's not that I'm against it, it's that I feel that the user 
> > should decide it.
> 
>  That is exactly what i am proposing.

I'm proposing to simplify it at maximum. You are proposing another 
hard-coded policy.

>  tla make-version -A address@hidden quux--core--2.2 (the old way)
>    or
>  tla make-branch -A address@hidden quux--2.2
> 
>  And it will automagically remember what policy you have decided.
> 
>  Also you should be able to:
> 
>  bash-3.01a$ tla show-policy (version|branch)
>  branch-first
>    or 
>  version-first

I don't find any use at forcing one schema or the other, or letting the
user choose between both. I don't find any practical use of having the
categories, branches and versions because they hav no use. Let me explain
it again using an example:

# create a project
tla archive-setup super-project--devel--0.9

Now I can create a project within the same category but totally unrelated:
tla archive-setup super-project--devel--1.0

The only relation betwen them is the name I choose. Arch does nothing with
the category to force the projects to be related. It's you who, with the
names you choose, create that relation. Nevertheless, you are forced to
create cat--branch--version for no gain,.

The only place where it's used is when building configs, where if you do 
not specify a versions it looks for the latest one (numerical sort). But, 
who does that anyway? You surely would like to specify the version if you 
want to obtain predictable results in what you get.

You see? You have to keep an order, a discipline, and arch won't help you 
in that, even with the current schema. So why do we need this policy? I do 
not think we need it. It raises the bar, makes things unnecessaryly more 
complicated -I'm not saying very complicated, only more complicated- and, 
unless I'm proved wrong, for no gain.

Pau