RE: [Caml-list] OCaml 4.04.0+beta1

[David Allsopp <dra-news@metastack.com>]

Damien Doligez wrote:
> > On 2016-08-12, at 14:50, David Allsopp <dra-news@metastack.com> wrote:
> >
> > If such a change were agreed, it would also be possible to alter opam
> lint (or at least opam-repository linting, once that's fully a "thing") to
> display a lint warning/info that things like ocaml {< "4.05"} probably
> mean "ocaml" {< "4.05~~"}.
> 
> So every mention of an OCaml version number in every opam package
> description file will have to be suffixed with a ~. And that has to be
> done before we change the OCaml numbering scheme.

Yes, but as far as OPAM packages are concerned, it sounds as though that's what we "should" already be doing. It's also something that can be done mechanically (cf. the removal of ocamlbuild in 4.03.0).

> And I still don't know what's the upside, except for "that's how Debian
> does it"...

It would mean that OPAM would be automatically clear that the release version (4.05.0) is superior to the release candidate (4.05.0~rc1) - that's philosophically nice, if nothing else. That said, I don't think there's any technical reason why the OPAM package version has to match the OCaml version exactly; it'd just be mildly confusing.


David