Re: [Gretl-devel] Grelt version branding
Am 14.09.2015 um 15:17 schrieb Riccardo (Jack) Lucchetti:
On Fri, 11 Sep 2015, Artur Tarassow wrote:
> Dear all,
>
> I just remembered the discussion we had in Berlin about the upcoming
> versioning of gretl.
> I really, and I think I wasn't alone with this, liked idea to version
> it using years as e.g. Matlab does (Gretl2015a). This may underline
> the ongoing development of gretl.
> Is this still on the table?
I agree, with one proviso: we already have the $version accessor, which
is geared towards the xx.yy.zz scheme. I don't think it would be a wise
idea to break that.
Hence, I guess that the best thing will be to market future versions
with the year-letter convention, but to keep the old numbering scheme
internally. So, for example, assuming that we release the next version
in February 2016, we'll announce it as Gretl 2016a (or perhaps, simply
Gretl 2016), but $version will be equal to 11003 or something like that.
As I had already mumbled quietly at the conference, I don't understand
the problem with switching the version numbers to years. In terms of the
$version accessor, the major number would undergo a massive jump from 1
to 2015, yes, but so what? As 2015 > 1 there is no rupture for
determining minimum version requirements. The minor and micro numbers
could well stay like they are. So the next release (hopefully before
2016) would be something like 2015.2.0 or 2015.2.1. You could even
mimick Ubuntu if you like and make the second-level number the month, in
case you're worried that otherwise it would be confusing.
If you want, you could also say that the 3rd-level (micro) number change
is only for bugfixing, and new functionality or incompatible changes
would only happen at 2nd-level changes. But that's a different issue
really, no need to mix that into this discussion, actually.
Or to make it clear, I guess I'm strongly against having different
numbers for external and internal purposes. This would just create
confustion and deter people from active collaboration (package writing
for example).
cheers,
sven