Hi Diego, Jack, sorry for the late reply. On 02/01/2013 06:47 AM, Jack Kelly wrote: > Diego Elio Pettenò <flamee...@flameeyes.eu> writes: >> On 31/01/2013 20:58, Jack Kelly wrote: >>> IMHO, that seems like a great way to cause trouble for unsuspecting >>> users. (Anyone remember KDE4.0?) Can you expand on why you think it's a >>> good plan? >> >> Because unlike KDE, automake can put a big fat warning in the generated >> configure that says "You're using a version unsuitable for production", >> and then people would understand it much better. > > Or at automake invocation time? > >> KDE 4.0 was a screwup because there was no big fat warning, and users >> insisted to have it. No user _asks_ for automake. >> >>> Is there a system like X.beta1, X.beta2, ..., X.0 that is going to fit >>> the ordering system for most package managers? Bonus points if it works >>> in asciibetical order, too. >> >> Good luck finding one. Gentoo would be fine with X.Y_betaZ — but I >> honestly dislike X.Yb because that kind of stuff is usually _after_ X.Y >> for almost everything but autotools.. > > Fair points. +1 to calling the betas "X.0". > But what if we want to have multiple betas for, say, Automake 1.14? Today, we can just have 1.13b, 1.13d, 1.13f, ...; how can we do so with the scheme you are proposing?
As for the naming scheme for alpha/beta versions in Automake: I agree it is suboptimal and a little confusing, its roots being likely based in the messy 1.4 -> 1.6 transition. So far, it hasn't yet grated on me enough to motivate me to try to improve it [1]; but if anyone wants to take a shot at that, be my guest! (that will probably require some mail archive digging and "git blame" invocations to see who introduced what for which reason). [1] In a way that is enough backward compatible, I mean. Regards, Stefano
