Brave new (1.0) world.

[Patrick R. Michaud]

On Thu, Feb 19, 2009 at 01:12:35PM -0800, chromatic wrote:
> Why?  Why such a focus on version numbers?  Who *cares* what a version number 
> is, as long as you can tell unambiguously that one release is newer than 
> another release?
> 
> Why have we spent such a huge amount of time today arguing 
> over real numbers?  
> We're not mathematicians.  We're not theologians.  We're not arguing over 
> Planck numbers or fractals or the limitation of human knowledge and 
> measurement.  We're just releasing software, one new version every month.
> 
> Why does it have to be ANY more complicated than "n + 1 is newer than n"?
> 
> (Before anyone responds and says "Deprecation deadlines!" we can just as 
> easily remove version numbers from deprecation notices and say "Removed no 
> sooner than March 2010" or whenever.)

Just to add a +1 -- I agree with every argument chromatic has
made on this topic in this thread (as they seem to match the 
positions I was taking at PDS).

That said, I have my doubts that the plan for the numbering system 
is going to change in 2009, so I'd prefer that we focus our
efforts on explaining it better than arguing over what it should be.

If it turns out that the numbering system is still open for discussion,
I'm all in favor of something clearer than what we have now.

Pm