3 ms·

But having to worry about compatibility between minor versions is still bad. People have come to expect that minor versions are interchangeable (modulo fixes f

But having to worry about compatibility between minor versions is still bad. People have come to expect that minor versions are interchangeable (modulo fixes for clear regressions and changes made in reaction to important outside events like major releases of Java).

dtech 9y ago
The minor versions are interchangeable. An increase to the second number is a new (binary incompatible) major version occurring every 1-3 years. It's unusual but not unique, see Python, Linux kernel, Postgres.
- magic_quotes 9y ago
  It's not unusual either, afaik rapidly increasing x in x.y.z was very unfashionable before initial Chrome release. Many java projects (e.g. older Apache Foundation projects: Apache POI, etc) still follow that versioning scheme, it kinda looks like semver, but there is no commitment to preserving compatibility on y changes.
- simon_o 9y ago
  > The minor versions are interchangeable. They are not, at least in Scala. See 2.12.x.
MaulingMonkey 9y ago
> But having to worry about compatibility between minor versions is still bad. It's also unavoidable. In theory, either the people doing the minor version releases need to worry about it, make conservative changes, thoroughly test those changes against a large amount of code, etc. - or the people consuming the minor version releases need to worry about it and do much of the same thing. Either way, build tools that can handle compiler versioning is a win. In practice, both the people doing the minor version releases and the the larger codebases consuming those minor version releases need to worry about it. "fixes for clear regressions and changes made in reaction to important outside events" is already a giant caveat that will lead to breakage at times, and even the best teams will occasionally fail to meet expectations.
- simon_o 9y ago
  I'm not sure what you are arguing against. All I'm saying is that the situation is bad as-is, and it would be good to not make it any worse.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

dtech 9y ago

The minor versions are interchangeable. An increase to the second number is a new (binary incompatible) major version occurring every 1-3 years. It's unusual but not unique, see Python, Linux kernel, Postgres.

magic_quotes 9y ago
It's not unusual either, afaik rapidly increasing x in x.y.z was very unfashionable before initial Chrome release. Many java projects (e.g. older Apache Foundation projects: Apache POI, etc) still follow that versioning scheme, it kinda looks like semver, but there is no commitment to preserving compatibility on y changes.
simon_o 9y ago
> The minor versions are interchangeable. They are not, at least in Scala. See 2.12.x.

MaulingMonkey 9y ago

> But having to worry about compatibility between minor versions is still bad. It's also unavoidable. In theory, either the people doing the minor version releases need to worry about it, make conservative changes, thoroughly test those changes against a large amount of code, etc. - or the people consuming the minor version releases need to worry about it and do much of the same thing. Either way, build tools that can handle compiler versioning is a win. In practice, both the people doing the minor version releases and the the larger codebases consuming those minor version releases need to worry about it. "fixes for clear regressions and changes made in reaction to important outside events" is already a giant caveat that will lead to breakage at times, and even the best teams will occasionally fail to meet expectations.

simon_o 9y ago
I'm not sure what you are arguing against. All I'm saying is that the situation is bad as-is, and it would be good to not make it any worse.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]