[pmwiki-users] version number (was: 2.0.6 release)

Patrick R. Michaud pmichaud at pobox.com
Tue Sep 20 22:43:28 CDT 2005


On Wed, Sep 21, 2005 at 02:27:08PM +1200, John Rankin wrote:
> On Saturday, 17 September 2005 6:41 AM, Patrick R. Michaud <pmichaud at pobox.com> wrote:
> >And lastly, for script and recipe authors, there is now a 
> >$VersionNum numeric value that makes it easier to determine if 
> >the currently running version of PmWiki is older or newer than a 
> >known release. $VersionNum is composed from the release number by 
> >padding the major and minor release numbers with zeroes to three 
> >digits, thus $VersionNum for this release (2.0.6) is 2000006, while
> >a release like "2.1.24" will have $VersionNum set to 2001024.
> >
> Is there a convention for dealing with versions of the form
> 
>     2.0.beta3

My intent at this stage (although it's not final until we actually
arrive at that point) is that "beta" will have minor release values
starting at 900 or something like that.  Thus, 2.0.63 would be 
2000063, 2.1.beta3 would be 2000903, and 2.1.0 would be 2001000.

If we ever need another "devel" series (and no, I'm not planning one!), 
they'll probably have minor release values starting at 700 or so, 
thus 2.2.devel13 would be something like 2001713.  

These numbers for devel and beta are just guidelines; the primary
requirements are simply that the numbers increase to maintain
the notion of 2.0.beta1 < 2.0.1 < 2.1.beta1 < 2.1.1, and that
it not be too difficult to relate release numbers to $VersionNum.

> It's my understanding that some projects have adopted a
> convention of using odd numbered major versions to designate
> beta and even numbers to designate stable. So 2.0.beta3
> becomes 1.9.3, 2.0.3 designates a stable release and 2.1.1 
> starts the next beta series.

Yes, the Linux kernel does this.  I thought once about a similar
numbering scheme for PmWiki, but somehow I prefer it when the 
releases clearly indicate "beta", so that people have some 
warning that things have the potential for change or instability.  

Pm

P.S.: Just to repeat for people who may be new to PmWiki and its
numbering scheme:  Major number releases (e.g., from 2.0.x
to 2.1.0) represent upgrades that may require some extra
consideration or configuration changes by a wiki administrator,
while minor number releases (e.g., from 2.0.5 to 2.0.6)
contain enhancements or bugfixes that aren't likely to
pose difficulties for existing sites.





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