It seems to me that Sage version numbers follow the rule, that when last digit
in X.Y.Z get to 2, then Y is incremented. That is some logic I guess, but it is
not a sensible one. (I think this is a case of Mathematicians at work)
Would it not be more appropriate to have some logic to the versions numbers,
which indicated the magnitude of the changes. It seems a mathematical formula is
applied to Sage version numbers, with version numbers indicating no measure of
the volume or type of changes made.
*Personally* I'd like to see changes in Z being *only* bug fixes and no new
functionality, but I don't think that would be a popular view. (William has told
me this before).
It would however mean that people that wanted a stable release to install on a
server they can't change every couple of weeks, would chose an X.Y.1, or an
X.Y.2, safe in the knowledge that it should be quite stable, as only bug fixes
were applied.
If a list of bugs to be fixed in the X.Y.1 or X.Y.2 were published, a user could
consult that list, and determine if its worth the bother of him/her updating
Sage. They would determine if they are likely to be affected by them, and not,
they could put off upgrading until there was new functionality added when Y is
incremented.
That is the approach GCC takes. If we look at the latest 4.4.3, we see
"This release is a bug-fix release, containing fixes for regressions in GCC
4.4.2 relative to previous releases of GCC."
http://gcc.gnu.org/gcc-4.4/
Wolfram Research do that too, with their X.Y.Z. A major release was Mathematica
6. Only bug fixes were applied in 6.0.1 - there was no new functionality.
I know Sage follows this "release early, release often" scheme, but I'm not
convinced this approach is really going to make Sage a viable alternative to to
Magma, Maple, Mathematica and Matlab.
Personally I feel having something like
Sage 4.0.0 - major new release. Sometime really great has happened. Be prepared
for some bugs (remember gcc 4.0.4 ?)
Sage 4.0.1 - only bug fixes
Sage 4.0.2 - only bug fixes
Sage 4.0.3 - only bug fixes
Sage 4.1.0 - semi- major release, new functionality.
Sage 4.1.1 - bug fixes only.
Sage 4.2.0 - new functionality.
Sage 4.2.1 - bug fixes only.
Developers would get their code reviewed, but know that if its contains new
functionality, it will have to wait until Z or Y is incremented before it will
get in.
Comments ?
Dave
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