On Nov 2, 2009, at 7:42 AM, Aristotle Pagaltzis wrote:
* Aristotle Pagaltzis <pagalt...@gmx.de> [2009-11-02 16:40]:
Just to warn you... bringing up version numbers in a room full
of old grumpy Perl/CPAN hackers is never a good idea.
Oh, and so that those who aren't in the know can enjoy basking in
the hate:
http://www.dagolden.com/index.php/369/version-numbers-should-be-
boring/
Mac OS has used fixed-layout version structures, allowing only three
numeric fields (and optionally a non-release designation, e.g. beta
2), allocating as few as four bits for each of the minor revision and
update numbers, using BCD so the numeric maximum is not 15 but 9, and
following those two four-bit fields with an eight-bit field whose
purpose is to store a selector with four possible values
(development, alpha, beta, final), wasting six bits that could have
been used to actually represent extremely large version numbers like
10.4.11.
On the other hand, they fit nicely into a 32-bit register. Too bad
you can't accurately compare them as integers.
Version Territory
http://developer.apple.com/mac/library/technotes/tn/tn1132.html
Josh
