[Bioperl-l] Bioperl versioning

[Sendu Bala]

Nathan Haigh wrote:
>
> Therefore I would see the following $VERSION being applied:
> 1.5.2 RC1            = 1.52_01
> 1.5.2 RC2            = 1.52_02
> 1.5.2 RC3            = 1.52_03
> 1.5.2                = 1.52_10
> 1.6 RC1              = 1.60_01
> 1.6 RC2              = 1.60_02
> 1.6                  = 1.60
> 1.6.1 RC1            = 1.61_01
> 1.6.1                = 1.61
> 
> This should satisfy the requirement of CPAN for having underscores in
> versions to indicate a developer release, which here is a Bioperl
> release with an odd minor version number or any RC whether it be of a
> developer release or a stable release. This should mean that we could
> have the RC's on CPAN, but by default, CPAN would only install the
> latest "non developer release" (i.e. the last package without an
> underscore in the version).

That all sounds good to me, except I worry about potential confusion if 
people look manually at the things available in CPAN, see 1.60_02 and 
think it is more recent than 1.60 and try to install it manually.

Since
$VERSION = 1.52_10;
is evaluated to 1.5210, by analogy if 1.60_02 was RC2 before release, 
final release version should be
$VERSION = 1.6010.


> If we are going ahead with the new $VERSION scheme (as it currently is
> in HEAD), we should, for the sake of clarity,  try to talk about Bioperl
> 1.52 instead of Bioperl 1.5.2 and make an effort to sync the
> documentation with regards to this.

I might disagree with this though. I think perl people, and perhaps unix 
people in general, should be used to version numbers like '1.5.2', but 
then getting '1.52' from the code since such a number allows simple 
numerical comparisons while the former does not. The former is easier to 
read and understand. This is just how Perl itself behaves.

Most users who wouldn't expect such a behaviour aren't going to be 
checking the version number programatically anyway.


BTW. do we have someone with a CPAN account, or should I get one?