Tres Seaver
-1: "practicality beats purity" here: there is *no* case in which an alpha version should *ever* sort after the final release with the corresponding number. If we specify the "simple pure" scheme you propose, nobody will use it, period.
Well then, I don't see a way forward on the issue of helping distributors to manage version numbers sanely. I don't know of any operating system package manager that returns different comparison results depending on what specific letters are used in the version string. All this specialness-of-certain-letters may make sense to Python core developers, but it's just going to result in nonsensical version progressions as far as operating system distributors are concerned. What will be the resolution there? -- \ “Pinky, are you pondering what I'm pondering?” “I think so, | `\ Brain, but me and Pippi Longstocking — I mean, what would the | _o__) children look like?” —_Pinky and The Brain_ | Ben Finney