> it would be useful for version numbers to have known semantics Fair point, but then wouldn't it have made more sense to also define a unique syntax for semve

> it would be useful for version numbers to have known semantics Fair point, but then wouldn't it have made more sense to also define a unique syntax for semver? If I can't tell whether a project follows that standard by looking at the version number I still can't rely on it without looking it up. That doesn't mean it's useless, but it's an unnecessary source of confusion. With Rust crates there's also the problem that developers cannot use a different syntax to indicate they don't follow semver - cargo will refuse to compile the project. While it would be nice if all packages followed a standard this will realistically never be the case and enforcing the notation won't change that.