[Python-Dev] Re: Stability and change (original) (raw)

Alex Martelli aleax@aleax.it
Mon, 8 Apr 2002 20:45:26 +0200

On Monday 08 April 2002 20:13, Paul Svensson wrote: ...

>whatever. If we can come up with something better than parity >of minor release number, I'll personally cheer... I just can't think >of anything better right now. Comparison of microrelease with >some arbitrary threshold changing by minor.major is worse, though -- >not a clear signal at all.

Why not take advantage of the "well known fact" that any software release ending in ".0" is not to be trusted ? Make X.Y.0.N the experimental branch, settling down to X.Y.1 as the final stable release, following up with X.Y.Z as bugfix-only releases, and the next round of experimentals continuing from X.(Y+1).0.0. This is almost as simple as the "just call it stable when it is" proposal, while still being even more obvious than the odd/even approach.

I agree it's somewhat more obvious than odd/even, so, although I do not see what you mean about simplicity here, I'd be quite satisfied with it.

Alex