[racket-dev] Release for v6.0 has begun

Yesterday, Matthew Flatt wrote:
> At Mon, 25 Nov 2013 09:56:45 -0500, Ryan Culpepper wrote:
> > On 11/25/2013 09:44 AM, Matthew Flatt wrote:
> > > Here's the full comment:
> > >
> > >     The version string has one of the forms:
> > >        X.Y
> > >        X.Y.Z     Z != 0
> > >        X.Y.Z.W   W != 0
> > >     where each X, Y, Z, W is a non-negative exact integer, Y must not
> > >     exceed 99, and Z or W must not exceed 999.  Y>=90 means that this is
> > >     working towards {X+1}.0, and X.Y (Z=0, W=0) is an alpha version for
> > >     {X+1}.0; Z>=900 means working towards X.{Y+1}, and X.Y.Z as an
> > >     alpha release.
> > >
> > > Then intent is that when Z and W are 0, the string form of the version
> > > number is just X.Y, not X.Y.Z.W.
> > >
> > > How about this clarification?
> > >
> > >           ... and X.Y (i.e., Z=0 and W=0, so Z and W are
> > >     omitted from the string form) ...
> > 
> > That's not the part that needs clarifying. I think that fact that the 
> > string form drops final zeros is clear from lines 2-4.
> > 
> > The part that needs clarifying is how to choose the version number for 
> > the alpha releases leading up to version {X+1}.0. (Really, how to choose 
> > alpha version numbers in general, since I've had similar problems in the 
> > past.) From this statement, "X.Y (Z=0, W=0) is an alpha version for 
> > {X+1}.0" (Y>=90 already stated), I would expect that 5.91 would be a 
> > fine alpha version number for 6.0. Is it? If not, what should the alpha 
> > version number be?
> 
> I agree that "5.91" is the right alpha-version string, assuming that
> it's intended as an "alpha" in the sense of our release rules (as
> opposed to a "release candidate", which has a non-zero W).

These two things were originally independent: the ability to specify
alpha-ness (the second .91) and release-ness (W=0), and that was used
by the old build script to make some decisions for what the installers
do.  Assuming that this still matters, there is a problem with using
"5.91" for the release process -- and instead it should be "5.91.0.1"
to make it treated as a nightly build.  For example, on Windows the
installer for a "5.91.0.1" wouldn't grab the suffix registration, but
"5.91" would which makes it bad as something that you ask people to
try.

BTW, this is not the same meaning of "alpha" that is used in the
release checklist -- that one has the meaning of a "release
candidate".

-- 
          ((lambda (x) (x x)) (lambda (x) (x x)))          Eli Barzilay:
                    http://barzilay.org/                   Maze is Life!