Re: Version numbering (was: citing IVOA standards)

From: Mark Taylor <m.b.taylor-at-bristol.ac.uk>
Date: Tue, 24 Jun 2008 09:47:58 +0100 (BST)


On Mon, 23 Jun 2008, Norman Gray wrote:

> What certainly is _very_ confusing about the current versioning scheme
> <http://www.ivoa.net/Documents/Notes/DocStd/Procedures-20040425.html#WorkingDrafts>
> is that the pre-REC and post-REC version numbers are not continuous: thus
> WD-1.0 is a different document from REC-1.0.

Gosh is that true? I kind of had that impression but thought it was so weird that I must have misunderstood the scheme. It is certainly very unhelpful.

> So, I propose:
>
> * All Recommendations have a version number n.m
> * All pre-Recommendation documents, including internal drafts, formal
> working drafts and proposed recommendations, have a version number yyyymmdd,
> with the status indicated by a prefix.
>
> Thus for a given document, we will have DRAFT-20080101, WD-20080201,
> PR-20080301 and either REC-1.0 or plain '1.0'. That scheme is monotonic (so
> satisfies properties (a) and (b)), and makes the document's status explicit
> rather than implicit.

I like this proposal.

-- 
Mark Taylor   Astronomical Programmer   Physics, Bristol University, UK
m.b.taylor@bris.ac.uk +44-117-928-8776 http://www.star.bris.ac.uk/~mbt/
Received on 2008-06-24Z16:41:28