[Distutils] PEP 426, round 733 ;)

[Nick Coghlan]

On Thu, Feb 7, 2013 at 4:17 AM,  <a.cavallo at cavallinux.eu> wrote:
> Mine wasn't an objection: it was a plain refusal.

Your preferred lexicographically sorted scheme is completely compliant
with both PEP 386 and PEP 426. It merely expects users to write their
requirements as ">= 1.1, < 1.1.90" if they don't want to accidentally
download pre-releases. By contrast, starting with PEP 426,
alphanumeric pre-releases will be excluded by default (while still
allowing users to explicitly request them when necessary).

I'll be updating the PEP to include some simpler examples of compliant
versioning schemes projects may actually want to use, as well as
including more rationale for the complexity of the overall scheme
(still not as much as PEP 386, but at least some). The sole current
example, which includes *every* feature of the version scheme in a
single list is intended as a stress test for metadata processors,
rather than as any kind of guide to possible versioning schemes. I now
realise this is potentially confusing for users looking for guidance
on the kinds of versioning schemes they can use while still remaining
within the format defined by the PEP.

The one *actual* change I will be making to the version scheme in the
next draft is to allow Fedora/Firefox/Chrome style version numbering
where there are only major releases, with no minor marker. Since the
version scheme also constrains what is permitted inside version
specifiers, this will also serve to permit things like
"Requires-Python: 2" as a shorthand for "Requires-Python: >= 2.0, < 3"
 (and similar in Requires-Dist and Setup-Requires-Dist for other
projects where major releases may contain backwards incompatible
changes, and thus cross-version compatibility should be explicitly
indicated with more permissive specifiers like ">=2.6, >=3.2, <4")

Regards,
Nick.

-- 
Nick Coghlan   |   ncoghlan at gmail.com   |   Brisbane, Australia