I do think sub-1.0 version numbers get abused a bit, because many people feel that putting the big 1.0 on something should mean the item is stable and as bug-free as possible, while having every feature one could ever dream of.

I think that's partially a pipe dream, and partially a lack of good planning. When coming up with a feature list, many people draw the 1.0 line when they can't think of any more good features. It should be drawn at a point when the item has all necessary features to accomplish its goal. The other features can be divided into useful chunks with bigger version numbers. A guassian blur filter in a graphics app won't be useful until the filter engine is done, and the engine is useless without a couple of simple filters -- those are things that might be released together under a version.

However, I don't think that sub-1.0 numbers are automatically bad, either. A sub-1.0 version should be, IMO, products that the author feels aren't really ready to be useful, yet. In other words, there are necessary features missing, or said features have not yet been adequately tested.

I would like to see authors with versions out like 0.98 promote to 1.0 when their 0.98 "testing" version hasn't gotten a bug report in months (or years).

<-radiant.matrix->
A collection of thoughts and links from the minds of geeks
The Code that can be seen is not the true Code
"In any sufficiently large group of people, most are idiots" - Kaa's Law

In reply to Re: A Peeve of Great Pettishness by radiantmatrix
in thread A Peeve of Great Pettishness by samizdat

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