[Distutils] RFC : Version comparison

[Marius Gedminas]

On Wed, Apr 22, 2009 at 11:12:22AM +0200, Tarek Ziadé wrote:
> We worked during Pycon on version comparisons. Distutils has one but
> it is a bit strict, setuptools has another one, but it's a bit
> heuristic.
> 
> We would like to propose the inclusion for Python 2.7 of a new version
> comparison algorithm, based on the discussion Fedora, Ubuntu and
> Python people had. The plan would be to deprecate the current one
> (which is not really used anyway) and provide, promote this one.

I assume by "not really used" you refer to the distutils algorithm
rather than the setuptools one?
> 
> Trent Mick took the lead on this work at the end of Pycon, and worked
> on a prototype.
> 
> It's explained here, and there's an implementation  (I've put it at
> the top of the page for conveniency):
> 
> http://wiki.python.org/moin/Distutils/VersionComparison

I find the dot separating the "1.0" from "dev" in "1.0.dev456"
unappealing.  Why was it added?

The current common setuptools usage is "dev" with no dot and with no
requirement to have at least one digit following the "dev".  (The common
usage also implies tarring and feathering anyone who releases a package
with 'dev' in the version number into PyPI).

I'm also kind of wondering why 'dev' rather than 'pre' if we want to
unambiguously distinguish prereleases from postreleases.  If it's for
compatibility with setuptools, then why the extra dot in front of dev?

(Personally, I like 1.2 < 1.2+svn1234 < 1.2.1 as opposed to the
prevailing norm of 1.2 < 1.2.1dev < 1.2.1.)

> Please comment,

-0.5 for inventing a new algorithm

+0.5 for using an existing one (and an additional +0.1 on top of that if
it's the one used by Debian)

Marius Gedminas
-- 
I've been in the sun for a week.  I took the bold step of leaving my
laptop at home.  I found only 4K messages pending when I returned.
        -- Keith Packard
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