I think the important line a lot of folks here are missing when discussing the "alternative" is this: >Are you releasing software to other developers who are m

I think the important line a lot of folks here are missing when discussing the "alternative" is this: >Are you releasing software to other developers who are making concious choices on when and how to depend on your software, as part of a dependency tool (like ruby gems) across an organizational boundary? Then maybe use semver. And earlier: >Do your users even care what version of your software they're using? Or do they just want it to work? Clearly semver has useful information imbedded into it, which a date+shortsha doesn't, but the big take away from Sam is that there's a good chance your version number doesn't matter to your users. Marco Arment (ATP, Overcast) spoke about this on Under The Radar[1] but, as an example, semver for an iOS app is meaningless for the typical iPhone user. I personally use a date+sha versionish on a project because there's only one way to use the software. The date tells users when anything got added or broken, and is useful for communicating updates; the sha is mostly for me. 1: https://www.relay.fm/radar/164 https://www.relay.fm/radar/164