On Thu, Sep 27, 2012 at 2:45 PM, Toshio Kuratomi <a.badger@gmail.com> wrote:
However, now that you mention it, ISTR that this is the way that it was originally and the lack of pre/dev in that position did bother another (set of?) the PEP authors enough that it was changed. For me, switching the search order of that particular piece is a bikeshed so I seem to have reallocated the memory for storing the arguments made in favor of shifting it to the current position :-)
Why is this perceived as a bikeshed issue? It seems like a discussion about substantial functionality which is tied to the semantics of these special tags. For many projects and organizations, terms like 'alpha' and 'beta' and 'dev' have meaning in a release context, and rearranging the order of these concepts has an impact.
So to be clear my proposal would be:
1.0dev1 < 1.0a1 < 1.0b1 < 1.0c1 < 1.0.pre1 < 1.0 < 1.0.post1
as opposed to the current:
1.0a1 < 1.0b1 < 1.0c1 < 1.0.dev1 < 1.0 < 1.0.post1
+1 for the proposal to change the PEP so that 'dev' versions are earlier than 'a' versions. I'm not a contributor to any packaging projects so this is really just a vote from an appreciative user of setuptools and distribute.