phaeron Posted December 23, 2018 Share Posted December 23, 2018 Nope, decimal versioning has been used for decades, where something like this would fail your logic test: 1.7, 1.8, 1.81, 1.82, 1.9 To avoid confusion, from the other side (those who expect the decimal point to always just be a separator of two complete numbers), a lot of developers have opted to put trailing zeroes. So the above sequence would be: 1.70, 1.80, 1.81, 1.82, 1.90, which is what phaeron does for Altirra. I always pop the zeroes off before posting them on my website; because I find it unnecessary; but to each their own... Altirra uses that versioning scheme because of my experience with VirtualDub, where confusion ensued after the transition from 1.9.x to 1.10.x. Padding the numbers is unambiguous and avoids confusion. For that reason I would ask that the version numbers not be trimmed when referring to the program. You can come up with theories all day about how the version numbers are going to be interpreted, but at the end of the day there are lots of ways for the versions to get mangled even if the user understands, such as lexicographic sort order in a file listing or pasting the numbers into an Excel spreadsheet. It's simply a waste of time to try to convince others of which way is right when you can avoid the problem entirely with little effort. It's the same with dates. My hardware manual is labeled with YYYYMMDD so it's understood on either side of the Atlantic and sorts properly in file listings too. Now, you can paint yourself into a corner where you run out of numbers in your versioning sequence, such as going above 0.99, and you have to break the pattern by either adding another minor digit or bumping the major version number. That's usually a hint that you need to stop procrastinating in beta and get version 1.0 out the door. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+MrFish Posted December 23, 2018 Share Posted December 23, 2018 (edited) Padding the numbers is unambiguous and avoids confusion. For that reason I would ask that the version numbers not be trimmed when referring to the program. Yes, it's the clearest way to represent versioning, in my opinion too; I just change them out of habit, preference, and brevity. But, no problem; it's your baby; I'll post them as is from now on... Edited December 23, 2018 by MrFish Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+MrFish Posted December 23, 2018 Share Posted December 23, 2018 It's the same with dates. My hardware manual is labeled with YYYYMMDD so it's understood on either side of the Atlantic and sorts properly in file listings too. Yeah, I think I'm reordering and un-padding the dates on the Hardware and Altirra BASIC manuals. I'll revert those too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frankie Posted December 23, 2018 Share Posted December 23, 2018 When I read a version that is written at 2.9, I say two point nine, not two and nine tenths. So what comes next is two point ten, two point eleven. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.