Pathlevel versions expected to be backward _and forward_ compatible. I.e. if something works on version M.N.P, then it expected to work on both M.N.P+1 and M.N.P-1 (modulo bug fixes, of course).
Adding new features (e.g. Algol support) isn’t such change — if it added in version M.N.P, then scripts, which use it, cannot run on M.N.P-1 version. Sent from mobile On Sun, 2 Feb 2025 at 22:39, Karl Berry <k...@freefriends.org> wrote: > On another front ... Automake's HACKING file says that "micro releases", > e.g., 1.17.1, should not add any new features. Does anyone know if there > is a technical reason for this? > > I just added Jose's Algol 68 support, but our next release feels a lot > more like 1.17.1 to me than 1.18. I think the rule should be more like > micro releases should not have new features that interfere existing > behavior. Otherwise virtually every release would be a minor release, > and/or new releases would be less useful than they could be. > > I certainly made several 1.16.x releases that had new features > (sometimes too many), and I'm not aware of any particular resulting > problems. A couple of the x.y.z releases made before me also had new > features, if interpreted strictly, though clearly Stefano et al. were a > lot more careful about this than me. > > What version is your bike shed :)? -k > >
