Paul, I disagree entirely.
Open any product on your PC today, Java IDE, Visual Studio...anything. It will have a build number. Not just software really, any and every product on the planet has a serial number. They are useful for uniquely identifying something. The major.minor.bug release version is very subjective and we tend to manipulate it that way. The build number is automated and therefore more reliable as a unique ID for the software version. I agree about the disconnect with SVN in the past. What we typically do on commercial projects is have the CI server automatically create a tag for the build in SVN. That solves the disconnect issue. iBATIS hasn't had a CI server until recently, so the tagging was manual. Now we do have a CI server and can automate the relationship one way or another (either tag SVN with the build number or pul the rev number from SVN and tag the build with that). It's important to me and easy to produce. So regardless of what build system we use, I'd like to ensure that a build number is represented on the deployable ZIP filename, the JAR file names the manifest file and the release.txt. Clinton On 2/17/07, Paul Benedict <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
I am responding on the dev list too :-) There's two things going on: 1) An automated build numbering -- and any build numbering for that matter -- isn't needed for official distributions. All you need is the X.Y.Z scheme where X=major,Y=minor,Z=revision versions. 2) You are actually using the build numbering to track your snapshots. That's what the build number is really for. When you use maven and attach -SNAPSHOT suffix to the version number, the libraries get deployed to the snapshot repository with an automated build number. So two things to remember: build numbers are for development distributions only. The build number will be updated for every snapshot distribution. Once you're ready to attempt an official release, remove -SNAPSHOT and then you have the next X.Y.Z version. Paul Clinton Begin wrote: > The build number is very important...it's the only automated serial > number we have. > > It doesn't matter to me where that number comes from. SVN rev number is > an excellent suggestion. But I don't want to downplay the importance of > an automated serial number. > > I agree with Jeff's point, that there shouldn't be two releases with the > same version but different build numbers, and we never have. > > Perhaps a new Ant/Maven task that grabs the revision from the current > working copy (because that's actually what you're building), but the > task should also check that there are no modifications...it's a bit > tricky to get it right actually. The alternative would be a "fresh > build" task that would do a full checkout from SVN, note the rev number > and then build from there. Which is actually decent. > > So to summarize, yes it's important and yes it could be more meaningful > by using the SVN rev number -- and it has to be automated. > > Cheers, > Clinton > > On 2/17/07, *Jeff Butler* <[EMAIL PROTECTED] > <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>> wrote: > > I agree that the build number is useless. Apache policy says that > there are not different versions of a release. So we really > shouldn't have 2.3.0-638 and 2.3.0-677, we only have one 2.3.0 > release (we've only broken that rule one time that I remember). > > I kind of like the way Derby does it. The download is just > Derby10.2.2.0, and they add the SVN revision number in the manifest > Bundle-Version property (e.g. 10.2.2000000.485682). I haven't > looked at their build to see how they get the SVN number into the > manifest - hopefully it's not a manual hack. > > I'd like to keep the version number on the name of the JAR file like > we're doing now (ibatis-2.3.0.jar) - just lose the build number. > > Jeff Butler > > On 2/17/07, *Larry Meadors* <[EMAIL PROTECTED] > <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>> wrote: > > OK, as I am digging through this, I see that we have this "build > number" thing on the download. > > I am wondering if we should change it to make that number have > some more value. > > What I mean is: "What does 'ibatis-2.3.0.677.zip' really tell me > about > the build?" > > 677 is just an arbitrary magic number tagged onto the build. > > Should we use something like the SVN release number instead? > That way, > I can very easily look to see *exactly* what has changed between > releases by doing this: > > svn diff old:new > > That seems a lot more useful than 638 or 677. > > Thoughts? I am going to do the next release that way instead > unless I > hear wailing and gnashing of teeth. > > Larry > > >
