[darcs-users] darcs version scheme (let's use odds/evens next time)

[Eric Kow]

This came up during benchmarking.  It's a bit hard to talk about
benchmarking because one has to understand our version scheme where

  - darcs 2.3.97.x refers to darcs 2.4 alpha x
  - darcs 2.3.98.x refers to darcs 2.4 beta x
  - darcs 2.3.99.x refers to darcs 2.4 rc x

See http://wiki.darcs.net/Benchmarks

The scheme was designed to solve a practical issue, that you could not
use things other than numbers for Hackage version numbers (probably a
feature, not a bug).  But it has its drawbacks in that people are
frequently confused.

I recommend that we revise our version scheme.  Starting from the July
Darcs release, I vote we start incrementing numbers in the odd/even
fashion.  For example, come July, we would release a

  darcs 2.5.0.x  for darcs 2.6 alphas
  darcs 2.5.1.x  for darcs 2.6 betas
  darcs 2.5.2.x  for darcs 2.6 release candidates

If we wanted to accommodate point releases, we could add another
column of numbers (darcs 2.5.1.0.x would therefore correspond to
darcs 2.6.1 alpha x), but that's likely to be overkill.

My hope is that this scheme would be a lot more intuitive and require
less explanation.  We can still informally refer to 2.5.0.x as 2.6
alpha, but at least we'll avoid confusing 2.5 with 2.4.

This is our release manager's call, naturally.
My two cents towards a freshly painted bikeshed :-)

-- 
Eric Kow <http://www.nltg.brighton.ac.uk/home/Eric.Kow>
PGP Key ID: 08AC04F9
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