Decline and fall of the version number

YESSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!

People get SOOOOO strange about version numbers.

Folks -- numbers are abstract representations of reality. That leaves room to make sense!!

I'm with the author on 2 out of three, and squishy on the third.

x.10 releases drive me out of my mind (not to mention sorting badly on ftp sites). We are trained to read that as a decimal point, and, with decimal points. x.10 is less than x.8.

And...Some people get WAY to anal about numbering. I don't really care if it's 2.1.1 or 2.2 or 3.0. Greater or lesser is the big deal. If major numbers signal major compatibility breaks, that's ok, but no harm is done if 2 to 3 just means -- "Hey!! We think we've got cool new stuff in here so we bumped the number."

As to don't junk and established scheme -- well....If it's a good scheme, sure. However, if you're not going to be otherwise religious about numbering schemes, everything is fair game.

Yea and windows 95 Windows 95B, Windows98, windows 98se, windows ME, windows 2K, windows XP windows 2k3 all make perfect sense.

The only sane version numbers I have seen to date is OS X.

you have OS X 10.0, OS X 10.1, OS X 10.2, OS X 10.3, OS X10.4

for minor updates to the OS they drop to 10.4.1, 10.4.2, etc stopping at .9 where a new OS number needs to be purchased.

Another very sane numbering scheme: OpenBSD. every half-year: number = old number + .1 (Predictability: trivial joke). If the last number was 2.9, the next will be 3.0, no matter what happened. That's cool for me, I think the Linux kernel could use some simpler numbering too. I don't like 2.6.10.11, it sounds like a bad sesame-street episode. And since my distro places rX if they patched something, it could end up in 2.6.10.11-rc3-mm2-r1 or so. As a user, I just want something stable that works!

Actually the linux kernel through me for a loop.

They hit 2.6.9 and i was thinking it was getting ready for 2.7 when 2.6.10 was released.

2.6.9 = 2.6.90

2.6.09 should be before 2.6.10

That is how our number system should be used.

Let's take a look at IP addresses.

24.61.105.9 = 024.061.105.009 not 240.610.105.900