The Core Problem with Parrot Version Numbers

[Andy Dougherty]

On Thu, 19 Feb 2009, Patrick R. Michaud wrote:

> On Thu, Feb 19, 2009 at 01:33:52PM -0800, chromatic wrote:
> > Alternately, we could use code names to refer to the biannuals, 
> > which appeals to my sense of whimsy:
> > 
> > 	Parrot 1.0 is Parrot Budgie
> > 	March 2009: 	Budgie 1
> > 			Budgie 2
> > 			Budgie 3
> > 			Budgie 4
> > 	July 2009	Cockatoo 1
> > 			Cockatoo 2
> > [...]
> 
> I like this scheme a lot.  Regardless of what Parrot does,
> I'm now seriously considering a version of this approach for Rakudo.
> (I had already been thinking along the lines of A, B, C, D, ... 
> based names, but having the numeric monthly suffix is a big help.)

I don't like it.  Unless you're very familiar with the project, you have 
no way of knowing if the names do or do not follow an alphabetical 
sequence.  Is "Woody" newer than "Sarge"?

On a related note, this is an issue of more than cosmetic import.  Parrot 
will ship using versioned directories.  Criteria for using those 
directories will eventually emerge.  Projects that build upon parrot may 
well wish to embrace a similar versioning structure.  This is an 
opportunity to make parrot's versions easier to parse, specify, compare, 
and understand than those that are handled by perl 5's version.pm.

-- 
    Andy Dougherty		doughera at lafayette.edu