> Depends on what the letter is used for. Vim 6 went from 6.0a to 6.0ax > with 6.0b .. 6.0z 6.0aa ... in between. Those, however, were alpha > and beta release with the final release simply "6.0". I think that is > appropriate usage.
Actually, Vim is a good example of a bad example. Which of these versions are newer/older than the other? 6.0a 5.8 6.0 6.0a 2.0e 2.0 2.0.18 2.0.11 How do you choose? The first looks like a vim alpha release versus a previous stable release. So the alpha 6.0a release is newer than the released 6.0. The second looks like a release 6.0 and alpha release -for- 6.0 so the 6.0 is actually a later version than 6.0a. How do you compare the third set? That looks like an older GNU textutils version common on many machines. The 2.0e is newer than version 2.0. The fourth line I am hoping there is no controversy over. The current textutils 2.0.18 is a later release than 2.0.11, both newer than 2.0e and 2.0. The point of this is that if you use a bad version number scheme then there is no easy way to determine which version is newer than another. You just have to know that a project uses custom scheme number 123 while another project uses a different scheme ABC. This makes it hard for people who package up tools for a wide audience to make it do the right thing. It means that sometimes you can't use the product version number. Let's say -you- want to make an .rpm or .deb of vim 6.0a and so you call it 6.0a and install it on several machines. Now 6.0 is released and you make a new rpm and call it that. The first thing you will find is that the installers think that 6.0a is later than 6.0 (as I agree it should, it is right much more often than it is wrong) and will not allow automatic tools to do the upgrade. You will have to manually hand hold the upgrade process. That is a gratuitous problem created by a poor version string syntax. If a scheme similar to the last were used then the installers would have handled the upgrade automatically. Use as simple and unambiguous of a versioning scheme as possible. Make it easy on people trying to use and deploy the tools. Bob _______________________________________________ Spamassassin-talk mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/spamassassin-talk
