I am confused about how next-version property works. I read the official documentation, it just a two line "only server as base version". I assume it will bump to the version I set on the next commit. But apparently it does not work like that. It seem like it adding current version number with the version number in the next-version, but it is not quite like that. Hope some one can explain it further. Thank you.
next-version is described in the documentation as:
Allows you to bump the next version explicitly, useful for bumping main or a feature with breaking changes a major increment.
You can think of next-version as a "future" git tag. The value of next-version should be equal to the value of the git tag you are going to add to your next release commit (a merge commit from develop to main, for instance).
As GitVersion is configured to increment either Major, Minor or Patch, for some branches you may want to exercise more control over which version part is incremented. Say GitVersion is configured to increment: Patch, but you know that there are features in develop that warrant a Minor or perhaps even Major increment. You can then use next-version to explicitly control the increment.
I've been using terraform for some time now and a doubt always come to my mind is, which versioning scheme is terraform-core using?
Is it semantic versioning AKA semver? Because if it is, why an upgrade in the minor version, as when upgrading a project from 0.11.X to 0.12.Y writes the state of terraform with that 0.12.x and it is not allowed to downgrade it back to 0.11.x?
Another thing related : why they opt for starting their version numbers in 0.X.X rather that 1.X.X? Does it mean anything?
They do use semantic versioning, but their interpretation is a little different than most.
Here's an answer on a GitHub issue from a Hashicorp employee regarding their versioning methodology:
At HashiCorp we take the idea of a v1.0 very seriously, and once Terraform gets there it will represent a strong promise of compatibility because we believe that the configuration language, internal architecture, CLI, and other product features are right for the long haul.
The current state of Terraform is a little more subtle. We do still consider backward-compatibility very important since we know there is a lot of production infrastructure depending on Terraform today. We must therefore make compromises so we can keep making progress towards something we could make v1.0 promises about. While we keep these disruptions to a minimum, they cannot always be avoided, and so we try to be very explicit about them in the changelog and, where applicable, in upgrade guides.
With this in mind, at this time we suggest always referring to the changelog before upgrading since this is our primary means to note any special considerations that apply during an upgrade. We try to reserve significant breaking changes for increases to the second (traditionally "minor") position in the version number, which at this time represent our "major" development milestones as we work towards an eventual v1.0.
Since Terraform is an application rather than a library we do not intend to follow the Semantic Versioning conventions to the letter, but since they do indeed represent common versioning idiom we are likely to follow them in spirit, since of course we wish to be as clear as possible. As #kshep noted, v0 releases are special in the semver conventions, but the meaning of v1.0 in semver is broadly consistent with how we intend to interpret it.
I'm sorry that our version numbering practices caused confusion here; based on this feedback, we will attempt to be clearer about the significance and risk of each release when we announce it and will work on writing some more explicit documentation on what I wrote above.
Ref: https://github.com/hashicorp/terraform/issues/15839#issuecomment-323106524
Better late than never: https://www.hashicorp.com/blog/announcing-hashicorp-terraform-1-0-general-availability
From here on you can expect regular semantic versioning support.
I get the logic of MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH and kinda intuitively get what -alpha and -beta mean at the end of a semver number but -rc doesn't ring any bell for me.
Couldn't find a satisfying answer there -> https://semver.org/
The meanings of prerelease and build meta tags in SemVer strings is entirely up to the publisher. Always consult the publisher's documentation before acting on tag content. As #lemieuxster points out however, "rc" is likely an acronym for Release Candidate.
In the absence of publisher documentation, you can not make assumptions about meanings of any prerelease tag. The spec defines precedence based entirely on the tag's ASCII code points and the number of fields: 1.0.0-airdale < 1.0.0-airdale.dog < 1.0.0-boring < 1.0.0-zed. They don't have to have any implied meaning for the sort algorithms to do their job. There's nothing special about "-alpha" unless the publisher documents what it means.
RC means release candidate. A release candidate (RC) version is a beta version likely to be a stable product. Generally, the last two releases may be stable release.
RC stands for release candidate, It is a version of a software program that is still being tested, but is ready to be released. If no major issues are found in the release candidate, then it is released to the public.
RC is made available for "last minute testing" purposes to detect any remaining errors within the program.
Cabal allows for a freeform Stability field:
stability: freeform
The stability level of the package, e.g. alpha, experimental, provisional, stable.
What are the community conventions about these stability values? What is considered experimental and what is provisional? I see only few packages are declared as stable. What kind of stability does it refer to, stability of the exposed API or the ultimate bug-free state of the software?
The field is mostly defunct now, and shouldn't be used. As Max said, it will probably be replaced by something meaningful in the future.
If you're interested in the history, the field originated in a design proposal for the first set of Hierarchical Haskell Libraries. That document describes the original intended meanings for the values.
Currently this field is a very poor guide to the stability of the library, so is mostly ignored. Duncan Coutts (one of the main Cabal and Hackage developers) has said that he eventually plans to replace this field entirely, with something like a social voting system on Hackage.
Personally (and I'm not alone) I just always omit the stability field. Given that it's going to go away, its probably not worth losing any sleep over what to put into it.
The original intended meanings were:
experimental: the API is unstable. It may change at any time, i.e.: any version number change;
provisional: the API is moving towards stability. It may be changed at every minor revision, but should provide deprecated versions of features;
stable: the API is stable. Only additions should be made at minor releases. After changes in the API, deprecated features should be kept for at least one major release.
As the other answers pointed out, the community seems not to be following these guidelines anymore.
As Simon Marlow points out, this is described in a design proposal for the first set of Hierarchical Haskell Libraries. The original link is dead, but you can find a copy in the wayback machine.
Closed. This question is opinion-based. It is not currently accepting answers.
Want to improve this question? Update the question so it can be answered with facts and citations by editing this post.
Closed 6 years ago.
Improve this question
I distribute software online, and always wonder if there is a proper way to better define version numbers.
Let's assume A.B.C.D in the answers. When do you increase each of the components?
Do you use any other version number tricks such as D mod 2 == 1 means it is an in house release only?
Do you have beta releases with their own version numbers, or do you have beta releases per version number?
I'm starting to like the Year.Release[.Build] convention that some apps (e.g. Perforce) use. Basically it just says the year in which you release, and the sequence within that year. So 2008.1 would be the first version, and if you released another a months or three later, it would go to 2008.2.
The advantage of this scheme is there is no implied "magnitude" of release, where you get into arguments about whether a feature is major enough to warrant a major version increment or not.
An optional extra is to tag on the build number, but that tends to be for internal purposes only (e.g. added to the EXE/DLL so you can inspect the file and ensure the right build is there).
In my opinion, almost any release number scheme can be made to work more or less sanely. The system I work on uses version numbers such as 11.50.UC3, where the U indicates 32-bit Unix, and the C3 is a minor revision (fix pack) number; other letters are used for other platform types. (I'd not recommend this scheme, but it works.)
There are a few golden rules which have not so far been stated, but which are implicit in what people have discussed.
Do not release the same version twice - once version 1.0.0 is released to anyone, it can never be re-released.
Release numbers should increase monotonically. That is, the code in version 1.0.1 or 1.1.0 or 2.0.0 should always be later than version 1.0.0, 1.0.9, or 1.4.3 (respectively).
Now, in practice, people do have to release fixes for older versions while newer versions are available -- see GCC, for example:
GCC 3.4.6 was released after 4.0.0, 4.1.0 (and AFAICR 4.2.0), but it continues the functionality of GCC 3.4.x rather than adding the extra features added to GCC 4.x.
So, you have to build your version numbering scheme carefully.
One other point which I firmly believe in:
The release version number is unrelated to the CM (VCS) system version numbering, except for trivial programs. Any serious piece of software with more than one main source file will have a version number unrelated to the version of any single file.
With SVN, you could use the SVN version number - but probably wouldn't as it changes too unpredictably.
For the stuff I work with, the version number is a purely political decision.
Incidentally, I know of software that went through releases from version 1.00 through 9.53, but that then changed to 2.80. That was a gross mistake - dictated by marketing. Granted, version 4.x of the software is/was obsolete, so it didn't immediately make for confusion, but version 5.x of the software is still in use and sold, and the revisions have already reached 3.50. I'm very worried about what my code that has to work with both the 5.x (old style) and 5.x (new style) is going to do when the inevitable conflict occurs. I guess I have to hope that they will dilly-dally on changing to 5.x until the old 5.x really is dead -- but I'm not optimistic. I also use an artificial version number, such as 9.60, to represent the 3.50 code, so that I can do sane if VERSION > 900 testing, rather than having to do: if (VERSION >= 900 || (VERSION >= 280 && VERSION < 400), where I represent version 9.00 by 900. And then there's the significant change introduced in version 3.00.xC3 -- my scheme fails to detect changes at the minor release level...grumble...grumble...
NB: Eric Raymond provides Software Release Practice HOWTO including the (linked) section on naming (numbering) releases.
I usually use D as a build counter (automatic increment by compiler)
I increment C every time a build is released to "public" (not every build is released)
A and B are used as major/minor version number and changed manually.
I think there are two ways to answer this question, and they are not entirely complimentary.
Technical: Increment versions based on technical tasks. Example: D is build number, C is Iteration, B is a minor release, A is a major release. Defining minor and major releases is really subjective, but could be related things like changes to underlying architecture.
Marketing: Increment versions based on how many "new" or "useful" features are being provided to your customers. You may also tie the version numbers to an update policy...Changes to A require the user to purchase an upgrade license, whereas other changes do not.
The bottom line, I think, is finding a model that works for you and your customers. I've seen some cases where even versions are public releases, and odd versions are considered beta, or dev releases. I've seen some products which ignore C and D all together.
Then there is the example from Micrsoft, where the only rational explanation to the version numbers for the .Net Framework is that Marketing was involved.
Our policy:
A - Significant (> 25%) changes or
additions in functionality or
interface.
B - small changes or
additions in functionality or
interface.
C - minor changes that
break the interface.
D - fixes to a
build that do not change the
interface.
People tend to want to make this much harder than it really needs to be. If your product has only a single long-lived branch, just name successive versions by their build number. If you've got some kind of "minor bug fixes are free, but you have to pay for major new versions", then use 1.0, 1.1 ... 1.n, 2.0, 2.1... etc.
If you can't immediately figure out what the A,B,C, and D in your example are, then you obviously don't need them.
The only use I have ever made of the version number was so that a customer could tell me they're using version 2.5.1.0 or whatever.
My only rule is designed to minimize mistakes in reporting that number: all four numbers have to be 1 digit only.
1.1.2.3
is ok, but
1.0.1.23
is not. Customers are likely to report both numbers (verbally, at least) as "one-one-two-three".
Auto-incrementing build numbers often results in version numbers like
1.0.1.12537
which doesn't really help, either.
A good and non-technical scheme just uses the build date in this format:
YYYY.MM.DD.BuildNumber
Where BuildNumber is either a continuous number (changelist) or just starts over at 1 each day.
Examples: 2008.03.24.1 or 2008.03.24.14503
This is mainly for internal releases, public releases would see the version printed as 2008.03 if you don't release more often than once a month. Maintenance releases get flagged as 2008.03a 2008.03b and so on. They should rarely go past "c" but if it does it's a good indicator you need better QA and/or testing procedures.
Version fields that are commonly seen by the user should be printed in a friendly "March 2008" format, reserve the more technical info in the About dialog or log files.
Biggest disadvantage: just compiling the same code on another day might change the version number. But you can avoid this by using the version control changelist as last number and checking against that to determine if the date needs to be changed as well.
In the github world, it has become popular to follow Tom Preston-Werner's "semver" spec for version numbers.
From http://semver.org/ :
Given a version number MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH, increment the:
MAJOR version when you make incompatible API changes, MINOR version
when you add functionality in a backwards-compatible manner, and PATCH
version when you make backwards-compatible bug fixes. Additional
labels for pre-release and build metadata are available as extensions
to the MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH format.
I use V.R.M e.g. 2.5.1
V (version) changes are a major rewrite
R (revision) changes are significant new features or bug fixes
M (modification) changes are minor bux fixes (typos, etc)
I sometimes use an SVN commit number on the end too.
Its all really subjective at the end of the day and simply up to yourself/your team.
Just take a look at all the answers already - all very different.
Personally I use Major.Minor.*.* - Where Visual Studio fills in the revison/build number automatically. This is used where I work too.
I like Year.Month.Day. So, v2009.6.8 would be the "version" of this post. It is impossible to duplicate (reasonably) and it very clear when something is a newer release. You could also drop the decimals and make it v20090608.
In the case of a library, the version number tells you about the level of compatibility between two releases, and thus how difficult an upgrade will be.
A bug fix release needs to preserve binary, source, and serialization compatibility.
Minor releases mean different things to different projects, but usually they don't need to preserve source compatibility.
Major version numbers can break all three forms.
I wrote more about the rationale here.
For in-house development, we use the following format.
[Program #] . [Year] . [Month] . [Release # of this app within the month]
For example, if I'm releasing application # 15 today, and it's the third update this month, then my version # will be
15.2008.9.3
It's totally non-standard, but it is useful for us.
For the past six major versions, we've used M.0.m.b where M is the major version, m is the minor version, and b is the build number. So released versions included 6.0.2, 7.0.1, ..., up to 11.0.0. Don't ask why the second number is always 0; I've asked a number of times and nobody really knows. We haven't had a non-zero there since 5.5 was released in 1996.