Re: Prolog; was Re: Actions 2022-05-17

"C. M. Sperberg-McQueen" <cmsmcq@blackmesatech.com> writes:
> John Lumley writes:
>
>> Are we going to mandate that the version is a number/ or a
>> multiply-dotted digit sequence ?
>
> That would simplify some kinds of later uses.

Maybe, but I’m not convinced. Mostly, I think, it would just shift the
complexity around. There’s no reason to deny ourselves the ability to
create blue/green versions in the future.

> I think it would probably be a good idea to decide that we as a group
> will use only decimal numbers in published specs while allowing drafts
> in progress to have other names, as above.

The community group that defines 1.1 or 2.0 or 23.4 will decide what
version label to publish. We have no control over them. Even if it’s all
of us in the future.

> But I am not sure anyone ever gets this kind of forward-looking
> infrastructure completely right, and I am willing to be taught a better
> approach.  For the moment, my view is: no one gets it completely right,
> but getting it even partly right is worth a lot, and having version
> labels is a good step.

I think we should say no more in the 1.0 specification about the labels
than what we decided yesterday: they are strings and the label “1.0” has
significance.

For some ideas about what we could say in the future, consider
https://tdg.docbook.org/tdg/5.2/ch05.html#s-dbversion

(Which I don’t think has had any value whatsoever, fwiw.)

                                        Be seeing you,
                                          norm

--
Norm Tovey-Walsh
Saxonica