From: Kirk Haines <khaines@...>
Date: 2004-05-25T04:53:42+09:00
Subject: Re: [SemiOT] Concerning version numbers...

On Tue, 25 May 2004 04:43:57 +0900, Gavin Kistner wrote

> I would say it's not a stability issue, it's a (stable) feature issue.
> 
> 0.9 is "I haven't yet added all the features I think should exist 
> for the initial 'done' release."
> 
> 1.0 is "Sure, there are more features that would be nice to add, but 
> all the core features are in there, and I have 1.1 and 1.2 for those,
>  and 2.0 for the really big rewrites or major changes."
> 
> This determination (which I'm sure is not my own) is why all the 0.x 
> versions baffle me...products that have been (or certainly appear to 
> have been) feature-complete for months (or years) shouldn't be 0.x. 
> If it's taking forever to reach 1.0, perhaps the feature list needs 
> to be re-examined. 1.0 isn't the penultimate world-dominating final 
> release, it's the initial major release. Just because you thought of 
> a neat feature during initial development doesn't mean that it needs 
> to be implemented for 1.0.

Thanks.  That's a good way of putting it.  This is something that I just 
never really got my head around before.  Maybe in part it is because in the 
past almost all of the software and the libraries that I wrote were in-house 
products that stayed in house, so versions were also internal and I didn't 
really have to think about it.  Now that I'm trying to be a lot more open 
with the software tools that I use to get my work done, though, I've found 
this topic to be the most difficult simple thing I've had to think about in 
a while.  :)

I guess the next release of Iowa will be 1.0.  Thanks for helping me sort 
this out in my head!


Kirk Haines