[Distutils] Common version-comparison semantics for peace love and harmony

[Laura Creighton]

In a message of Sat, 28 Nov 2009 11:01:45 GMT, Floris Bruynooghe writes:
>On Sat, Nov 28, 2009 at 10:50:36AM +0100, Laura Creighton wrote:
>> But I think that it is the other way around ... what we want is a
>> timestamp.  The algorithm is for guessing which version is ealier
>> in the absence of a timestamp.
>
>Does this work when you have a two maintenance branches releasing in
>parallel?  Consider this example:
>
>2009-01-01: 1.0
>2009-02-01: 1.1
>2009-02-20: 1.0.1    (1.0 maint branch)
>2009-02-21: 1.1.1    (1.1 maint branch)
>
>
>Regards
>Floris

Not if the only thing you sort on is the date -- which by the way should
have hours and minutes as well -- because, as you say that is not enough
to tell the 1.1 branch from the 1.0 branch.  But once you have a name for
a series of releases, then a timestamp can sort the series.

Let us say that you now find a horrible bug and make:

2009-02-22-22:01: 1.0.2
2009-02-22-22:04: 1.1.2

Now I want to say 'requires this bugfix'.  Right now I think that if
I say requires 1.0.2 or later, then people with 1.1 will expect that
they are ok, when they are not.  Or am I misunderstanding?

Laura