[Distutils] PEP 386 status - last round here ?

[M.-A. Lemburg]

Tarek Ziadé wrote:
> [..]
>> 1. whether it's release quality code
>>
>>        1.0.0
>>
>> 2. whether it's a development snapshot
>>
>>        1.0.0a0.20091202
>>
>> 3. whether it's working code, but still under development
>>
>>        1.0.0a1
>>
>> 4. whether it fixes some bug that was found after a release
>>
>>        1.0.1
> 
> How do you explicitely know here that "1.0.1" is a final release ?
> 
> it could be a dev snapshot of "1.0"

No, dev snapshots of 1.0 would be marked as:

	1.0.0a0.123

> Unless you are suggesting that snapshots are always timestamps, but that's
> just one way to number snapshots.

Snapshots can use any number format they like - as long as
it's numeric, e.g. timestamps, subversion revision numbers, etc.

Not hq hex revisions, I'm afraid, unless there's a standard way
to express them as (monotone) numbers as well.

> [..]
>> If you want to then work on release 1.1, you'd continue with:
>>
>> - 1.0.567
>> < 1.1a0 (which is not released and only used to mark the start of 1.1
>>         development, just like we do for Python)
>> < 1.1a0.124
>> < 1.1a0.245
>> < 1.1a1     (pre-release)
>> < 1.1a1.346
>> < 1.1a2     (pre-release)
>> < 1.1       (release)
>>
>> As you can see, you don't need any dev-markers and post-markers
>> turn into pre-release minor version numbers... less noise,
>> more clarity, well at least IMHO.
> 
> I see your point  but the problem I see is that you are unable to explicitely
> make a difference between development snapshots and final releases, because
> projects can use three levels for their final releases:
> 
> MAJOR or  MAJOR.MINOR or MAJOR.MINOR.MICRO
> 
> so if snapshots are only numbers, they can't be explicitely differenciated.
> 
> IOW:    1.0.10 can be two things here, if I get it right:
> 
> - a snapshot release of 1.0
> - the 1.0.10 final release
> 
> So end-users and packagers will not know if they deal with a final
> release or not.

A snapshot will always be a version of a pre-release, so
it's clear that you get a snapshot when looking at:

	1.0.0a0.123

(the "a0" signals the pre-release status)

OTOH, versions without pre-release marker are always release
versions, e.g.

	1.0.0
	1.0.0.123
	1.0.0.123.0.456

(with whatever meaning those added levels may have, e.g. could be
build numers, branch version numbers, etc.)

-- 
Marc-Andre Lemburg
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