Plasma Next Naming

[argonel]

On Sun, Jan 19, 2014 at 2:00 AM, Martin Graesslin <mgraesslin at kde.org>wrote:

>
> But of course the main idea behind the version pattern change to a date
> based
> version number is to add more information to it. The main problem with
> version
> numbers is that they don't carry any information and nobody knows how old
> that
> version actually is.


I'd say this is not entirely true. Paired with the currently installed
version number, you can tell:

- How "far" your system is behind
---> e.g. have "1.1.2" and the update is "1.1.4" --> "Whoops, missed an
update there, better look into that"

- How important/interesting the update is
---> e.g. have "1.1.2" and the update is "1.1.3" --> "Ok, I don't need to
do this right now," or conversely "I can do this update now because its
unlikely to cause any serious issues"
---> e.g. have "1.1.2" and the update is "2.1" --> "Whoa, really out of
date, maybe this showstopping bug is fixed!" or conversely "I'd better not
do this update until after I finish the project that's due tomorrow"

Whereas with dates you have two dates and can only tell the number of days
between them. You'll have to find a list of releases to know if the system
you're sitting in front of is merely out of date, or unusably out of date.


> For our own releases we know it because we can do math.
> So we know that 4.8 is two years old as we currently have 4.12 and it's
> four
> releases away. But if one looks at a more global scheme that information is
> just not there. How old is Firefox 15 or Chrome 12 or Linux 2.6.32? A date
> based scheme helps there.
>
>
The single number does at least allow you to detect how far out of step you
are. You can't know how many releases there have been from a mere date.

Why is the age of a piece of software interesting? Distributions don't
necessarily package new releases promptly, and the time elapsed since the
last release doesn't reveal anything about the importance of the release or
developer activity.

~Eli
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