[Distutils] PEP 426, round 733 ;)

[a.cavallo at cavallinux.eu]

I followed in the past the discussion that lead to the pep. I've lost any
interest in it because I had a clear perception there was more interest in
"splitting the hair" that solving any real problem, *and that was years ago*. 
That alone should trigger some doubt about the validity of the points made. 


My whole point would be: if walks like a duck sounds like a duck *don't call it a
plane*.
*If a version has to be enforced* it'd better sommething simple as a
major.minor[.micro] or an integer or a timestamp for that matter. Something that
could be "simply" sorted without requiring magic handling.

Ideally it would be something that connects to the source revision number (as in
subversion) or the integral id or even a timestamp (that's what an exported
version must be).

BTW Rpm has a "version" and (as fallback) an Epoch field overriding the version
to "repair" such a problem: not used often these days, but it is there.






On Tue 05/02/13 09:08, "Ronald Oussoren" ronaldoussoren at mac.com wrote:
> 
> On 4 Feb, 2013, at 20:59, Antonio Cavallo <a.cav
> allo at cavallinux.eu> wrote:
> > > Because the version number is just more
> complicated? The details have been ...
> 
> > Nope, the whole point is it shouldn't. If that has
> to be enforced why adding "marketing alert" to it? Why choosing something
> complex over something simple?
> 
> > In the correct world (mine where unicorns live
> freely) I should be able to retrieve the code that goes with an installed
> package just using that version and rebuild it (in a repeatable
> way)!
> 
> > Or you're talking about a "label" instead a version?
> In which case you shouldn't really compare them!
> I'm talking about version numbers in the real world and those just aren't
> that simple. The scheme described in the PEP is fairly complex, but as Nick
> mentioned not all features will be used at the same time. The scheme also
> gives a clear and sane meaning to almost all version numbers actually used
> on PyPI, please check the archives to see the discussions that led to this
> PEP.
> That doesn't mean that the documentation can't nudge users towards a simple
> major.minor[.micro] scheme, possibly referencing semantic versioning.
> Ronald
> 
>