What's the next release number?

What's the next release number?

[Daniel Shahaf]

How can I now, at a given point in time, what will be the next release's
version number?

I keep running into situations where I need to refer to a change made in
master using the release number it's expected to first appear in, and
when I try to guess what that number will be, I get it wrong.  (E.g.,
when 5.0.8 was current I wrote "The change will appear in 5.0.9" and
there is no such version.  Ditto for 5.1.2/5.2.)

I could say "the change will appear in the release after 5.2", but
that's needlessly complicated: I'd much rather be able to say "The
change will appear in release ${foo}" for one specific value of ${foo}.

Cheers,

Daniel

Re: What's the next release number?

[Benjamin R. Haskell]

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On Mon, Dec 28, 2015 at 10:02 AM, Daniel Shahaf <d.s@daniel.shahaf.name>
wrote:

> How can I now, at a given point in time, what will be the next release's
> version number?
>

You can't know.  It depends on how significant a release it is.


I keep running into situations where I need to refer to a change made in
> master using the release number it's expected to first appear in, and

when I try to guess what that number will be, I get it wrong.  (E.g.,
> when 5.0.8 was current I wrote "The change will appear in 5.0.9" and
> there is no such version.  Ditto for 5.1.2/5.2.)


> I could say "the change will appear in the release after 5.2", but
> that's needlessly complicated: I'd much rather be able to say "The
> change will appear in release ${foo}" for one specific value of ${foo}.
>

What's an example situation?  "The change will appear after version X.Y"
and "The bug was fixed after version X.Y" both seem reasonable to me for
situations that need a description in natural language.

For something automated (e.g. `is-at-least X.Y.Z`), you can just assume it
will be a patch release, since the version increment will be at least as
much as a patch release.  Even if no release ever exists with that specific
version, the next release will still compare as greater.

-- 
Best,
Ben

Re: What's the next release number?

[Daniel Shahaf]

Benjamin R. Haskell wrote on Mon, Dec 28, 2015 at 11:07:12 -0500:
> What's an example situation?  "The change will appear after version X.Y"
> and "The bug was fixed after version X.Y" both seem reasonable to me for
> situations that need a description in natural language.
> 

In zsh-syntax-highlighting, when I make a bugfix that depends on
a bugfix in zsh, in the ticket I'd like to say "The fix requires
zsh 5.1.2 or newer".

> For something automated (e.g. `is-at-least X.Y.Z`), you can just assume it
> will be a patch release, since the version increment will be at least as
> much as a patch release.  Even if no release ever exists with that specific
> version, the next release will still compare as greater.
> 

Sure.  But for natural language it might be confusing to refer people to
"5.1.2 and newer" when there's no zsh-5.1.2.tar.gz available for
download...

Cheers,

Daniel

> -- 
> Best,
> Ben

Re: What's the next release number?

[Benjamin R. Haskell]

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On Mon, Dec 28, 2015 at 11:11 AM, Daniel Shahaf <d.s@daniel.shahaf.name>
wrote:

> Benjamin R. Haskell wrote on Mon, Dec 28, 2015 at 11:07:12 -0500:
> > What's an example situation?  "The change will appear after version X.Y"
> > and "The bug was fixed after version X.Y" both seem reasonable to me for
> > situations that need a description in natural language.
> >
>
> In zsh-syntax-highlighting, when I make a bugfix that depends on
> a bugfix in zsh, in the ticket I'd like to say "The fix requires
> zsh 5.1.2 or newer".



"The fix requires zsh newer than 5.1.2"


> For something automated (e.g. `is-at-least X.Y.Z`), you can just assume it
> > will be a patch release, since the version increment will be at least as
> > much as a patch release.  Even if no release ever exists with that
> specific
> > version, the next release will still compare as greater.
> >
>
> Sure.  But for natural language it might be confusing to refer people to
> "5.1.2 and newer" when there's no zsh-5.1.2.tar.gz available for
> download...


Agreed, so for natural language, I think the correct approach is to avoid
trying to specify a future version.  Just use "newer than x.y.z"

-- 
Best,
Ben

Re: What's the next release number?

[Peter Stephenson]

For now, the best assumption is to add 1 to the second digit.

Since 5 there's only a third digit if we need a quick fix-up release.

Thereʼs no likelihood of a 6 any time soon.

pws