[Python-Dev] devguide: Backporting is obsolete. Add details that I had to learn.

[Antoine Pitrou]

On Tue, 10 Jan 2012 11:57:03 -0500
Glyph <glyph at twistedmatrix.com> wrote:
> 
> Whatever your personal feelings, there is a precedent established in the API:
> 
> >>> sys.version_info.major
> 2
> >>> sys.version_info.minor
> 7
> >>> sys.version_info.micro
> 1
> 
> This strikes me as the most authoritative definition of the terms, in the context of Python.  (Although the fact that this precedent is widely established elsewhere doesn't hurt.)

While authoritative, it is still counter-intuitive and misleading for
some people (including Nick and me, apparently). I never use the field
names myself, I use version_info as a 3-tuple.

> Whatever term is chosen, the important thing is to apply the terminology consistently so that it's clear what is meant.  I doubt that anyone has a term which every reader will intuitively and immediately associate with "middle dot-separated digit increment by one".

I changed the terminology in my latest changeset:
http://hg.python.org/devguide/rev/f39d063ab3dd

Important to notice is that the major / minor distinction isn't
relevant in most contexts, while the feature / bugfix distinction is.
Where "major" plays a role, we can simply avoid the term by talking
about Python 2 and Python 3, which is more explicit too. I doubt this
needs to be revisited before 10 years anyway.

Regards

Antoine.