Best Practice: Software Versioning [closed]

Answer 1

As Mahesh says: I would use x.y.z kind of versioning

x - major release y - minor release z - build number

you may want to add a datetime, maybe instead of z.

You increment the minor release when you have another release. The major release will probably stay 0 or 1, you change that when you really make major changes (often when your software is at a point where its not backwards compatible with previous releases, or you changed your entire framework)

Answer 2

You should start with version 1, unless you know that the first version you "release" is incomplete in some way.

As to how you increment the versions, that's up to you, but use the major, minor, build numbering as a guide.

It's not necessary to have every version you commit to source control as another version - you'll soon have a very large version number indeed. You only need to increment the version number (in some way) when you release a new version to the outside world.

So If you make a major change move from version 1.0.0.0 to version 2.0.0.0 (you changed from WinForms to WPF for example). If you make a smaller change move from 1.0.0.0 to 1.1.0.0 (you added support for png files). If you make a minor change then go from 1.0.0.0 to 1.0.1.0 (you fixed some bugs).

If you really want to get detailed use the final number as the build number which would increment for every checkin/commit (but I think that's going too far).

Answer 3

The basic answer is "It depends".

What is your objective in versioning? Many people use version.revision.build and only advertise version.revision to the world as that's a release version rather than a dev version. If you use the check-in 'version' then you'll quickly find that your version numbers become large.

If you are planning your project then I'd increment revision for releases with minor changes and increment version for releases with major changes, bug fixes or functionality/features. If you are offering beta or nightly build type releases then extend the versioning to include the build and increment that with every release.

Still, at the end of the day, it's up to you and it has to make sense to you.

Answer 4

We use a.b.c.d where

• a - major (incremented on delivery to client)
• b - minor (incremented on delivery to client)
• c - revision (incremented on internal releases)
• d - build (incremented by cruise control)

Answer 5

You know you can always check to see what others are doing. Open source software tend to allow access to their repositories. For example you could point your SVN browser to http://svn.doctrine-project.org and take a look at the versioning system used by a real project.

Version numbers, tags, it's all there.

Answer 6

I start versioning at the lowest (non hotfix) segement. I do not limit this segment to 10. Unless you are tracking builds then you just need to decide when you want to apply an increment. If you have a QA phase then that might be where you apply an increment to the lowest segment and then the next segement up when it passes QA and is released. Leave the topmost segment for Major behavior/UI changes.

If you are like me you will make it a hybrid of the methods so as to match the pace of your software's progression.

I think the most accepted pattern a.b.c. or a.b.c.d especially if you have QA/Compliance in the mix. I have had so much flack around date being a regular part of versions that I gave it up for mainstream.

I do not track builds so I like to use the a.b.c pattern unless a hotfix is involved. When I have to apply a hotfix then I apply parameter d as a date with time. I adopted the time parameter as d because there is always the potential of several in a day when things really blow up in production. I only apply the d segment (YYYYMMDDHHNN) when I'm diverging for a production fix.

I personally wouldn't be opposed to a software scheme of va.b revc where c is YYYYMMDDHHMM or YYYYMMDD.

All that said. If you can just snag a tool to configure and run with it will keep you from the headache having to marshall the opinion facet of versioning and you can just say "use the tool"... because everyone in the development process is typically so compliant.