Tarek Ziadé <[email protected]> writes: > On Fri, Nov 27, 2009 at 1:52 PM, Ben Finney <[email protected]> > wrote: > > I'd like to register, once again, the point that [translating PEP > > 386 version comparison semantics to existing semantics] would not > > *be* a problem if PEP 386 described a version comparison scheme that > > simply works without special keywords. Have each segment compared > > alphanumerically, and it will not *need* translation to work with > > other packaging systems. > > Not sure what you mean by special keywords. If it's about 'post' and > 'dev'
Yes, and others that have been proposed to be exceptions to alphanumeric ordering. > the problem we have is to be able to sort those post and pre releases > with other versions. And this is not possible with a simple > alphanumerical comparison. It is, if the version strings are chosen to fit within such a comparison semantic. > And this is not a special use case, and has to be part imho of our > version-comparison semantics. > otherwise, our scheme would be useless for developers that work as a > daily basis with snapshots, > dev versions etc. This is a red herring, AFAICT. It's been discussed already that workflow is orthogonal to version comparison semantics. That is, nothing about a workflow involving snapshots or dev versions etc. implies that exceptional version keywords need to be accommodated. Exactly the same workflow can take place by choosing different version strings that work with existing version-comparison semantics. Moreover, AIUI there is no injunction that all projects must follow exactly the semantics of PEP 386, right? So why not have a *simple* standard (all version string components compared alphanumerically) in PEP 386, that is known to work unmodified with existing package systems, without Python-specific translation layers for version comparison? -- \ “Alternative explanations are always welcome in science, if | `\ they are better and explain more. Alternative explanations that | _o__) explain nothing are not welcome.” —Victor J. Stenger, 2001-11-05 | Ben Finney _______________________________________________ Distutils-SIG maillist - [email protected] http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/distutils-sig
