From: URABE Shyouhei <shyouhei@...>
Date: 2005-12-19T21:43:26+09:00
Subject: Re: 1.8.x, YAML, and release management

Hi.

Hugh Sasse wrote:

>Where is this constraint set?
>

In matz himself.  He announced that in, for instance, [ruby-dev:9366].

>Modifying the code that handles
>version numbers to support larger minor versions would seem to be
>useful.
>

That's true.  I agree.

Sad thing is that requires a reconstruction of very low-level C 
infrastructure in ruby source code.  You can grep *.c files with 
RUBY_VERSION_CODE to see how ruby itself implies its version number 
being three-digit decimal numbers.  As 1.8 is a stable branch, I don't 
think it's a good idea to touch such a fundamental point.

>It would also help integration of gem version number
>handling within ruby.
>

So what? That's another story.

>Such a change should not break existing
>assumptions,
>

Yes it does.  You can see how string comparisons are used in ruby 
version checking in:

http://raa.ruby-lang.org/gonzui/search?q=RUBY_VERSION&fm=all

It's almost an idiom.

>since they seem to be based on single digit version
>numbers (or at leeast that's true since about 1.4.4 when I joined
>the community).  Therefore, in the context of this debate, it should
>be possible to make such a change in 1.8.[45].
>
>       Hugh 
>  
>