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Postings from May 2003
I was talking to Autrijus and Leon about version numbers and noticed that the documented method of denoting an alpha module release and the way that PAUSE and search denote them do not match. From the PAUSE FAQ it should be 1.00_00, etc. - "The automatic integration of your work into several indexes and directory trees is not always in accordance with what you desire. If you want to prevent propagation to places outside of your directory, simply choose a filename that matches /\d\.\d+_\d/, i.e. something that looks like derived from a perl subversion number (maybe because it is a perl subversion). PAUSE will leave such distributions untouched: no readme will be extracted, no index will be updated, no symlinks will be created." from perlmodlib - "To be fully compatible with the Exporter and MakeMaker modules you should store your module's version number in a non-my package variable called $VERSION. This should be a floating point number with at least two digits after the decimal (i.e., hundredths, e.g, $VERSION = "0.01"). Don't use a "1.3.2" style version." I am reasonably sure that a 1_00 version number will break Exporter version checking unless this has changed but I would have expected the documentation to reflect that change. http://search.cpan.org/author/MUNROER/vms-librarian-1_06/ is the module that prompted the conversation and it's reasonably clear from the releases that these aren't intended to be alpha versions. While I prefer the old method it doesn't really matter as long as the documentation, Exporter and search/PAUSE are all consistent in their behaviour and documentation. Perhaps, too, we could do better at making some of the more simple things obvious/easy which would help authors get the version and packaging of their modules right on the first go. Maybe a quick overview email that details correct version numbering and the current packaging tools/conventions would get sent to the authors when they receive their PAUSE ID confirmation would be helpful? Or ExtUtils::MakeMaker checking for version numbers and warning authors on ill-formed versions? I don't really want to pick the scab that is versioning but it seems like very few modules are using the version number convention correctly, if at all, and I think a few simple things could help guide authors in the right direction. e.Thread Next