[Distutils] Common version-comparison semantics for peace love and harmony

[Tarek Ziadé]

On Sat, Nov 28, 2009 at 2:26 AM, Ben Finney <ben+python at benfinney.id.au> wrote:
[..]
>
>> Why should developers change, and packagers not?
>
> Packagers *do* change how they work; Piotr has been explaining at length
> how packagers put in efforts to meet version-comparison semantics half
> way. I'm asking that the standardisation effort at least not make this
> effort more difficult that it needs to be.

Piotr, and all os packagers will always have to transform our versions
into theirs.

Once we have chosen it, it will not make their life more difficult.
It's just one regular
expression doing the work. Its size may vary that's all.

Moreover, they will be able to do a better work because they will stop guessing
the versions of Python packages, they will just stick with a
*documented* standard.

>
> Moreover, what is a standard for if not for encouraging people to follow
> it for the benefit of many?
>
>> It's simply not an equitable request, which is why the proposal is
>> unrealistic.
>
> I think you're reading a proposal that I didn't write.

It's a realistic standard. It's an equitable request. You can do
whatever you want to
do with your versions internally. But as soon as you publish them, they HAVE to
be ordered by other tools that deal with your package, like installers.

So you have two choices:
- an implicit, heuristic ordering (that's what is happening today)
- a explicit, documented ordering. that's the goal of PEP 386.

I don't see why this is not a benefit for all of us.

Tarek