Version indicators (was Re: [public-webapps] Comment on Widget URI (7))

On Dec 18, 2009, at 17:22 , Robin Berjon wrote:
> On Dec 17, 2009, at 03:20 , Larry Masinter wrote:
>> I actually think the TAG discussions about versioning and the use of version
>> indicators has been helpful, but it's been hard to drive this to a publication,
>> because there's still some work to be done. However, I think the main insight
>> I've had is that version indicators have limited (but non-zero) utility in 
>> situations where the popular language implementations evolve independently
>> of published language specifications. Normally, if language implementations
>> follow language specifications closely, you can use the version number of
>> the specification as a good indicator of the version number of the language.
> 
> So I don't think that it's a question of whether implementations drift compared to specifications — even though in practice that's a factor. The problem is that using a version indicator is *not* a versioning strategy, but as soon as you start having a versioning strategy you cease needing a version indicator.

I've been editing an old paper about "XML Bad Practices" I'd presented at XML Prague last year and have been releasing it in small parcels[0]. There's a more detailed discussion of this specific topic at:

  http://berjon.com/blog/2009/12/xmlbp-naive-versioning.html

A longer and more thorough discussion of versioning strategies is certainly needed. It seems to me that we revisit it with every new working group :)

[0] http://berjon.com/blog/2009/12/xmlbp-intro.html

-- 
Robin Berjon - http://berjon.com/

Received on Monday, 21 December 2009 14:28:05 UTC