> On May 13, 2016, at 6:33 PM, David G. Johnston <david.g.johnston@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On Fri, May 13, 2016 at 7:32 PM, Mark Dilger <hornschnorter@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Any project that starts inflating its numbering scheme sends a message to
> users of the form, "hey, we've just been taken over by marketing people, and
> software quality will go down from now on."
>
> Tom brought up my own thoughts on the rest - but, really, this is a cynical way of looking at things.
Every company I have worked for that has been taken over by pointy haired
bosses has almost immediately begun playing games with the version numbers,
product names, etc, and dropped the focus on quality, performance, bug fixes,
etc. I don't expect that from the postgresql community, but I find discussion
on the mailing lists about using a "wow, 10.x.x release! how amazing" marketing
line rather crass. I doubt many people in the tech industry generally feel all
that differently about it. I've never worked with a programmer or DBA who was
impressed with these kinds of version number bumps.
I fully agree mine is a cynical point of view.
My main concern is that a commitment to never, ever break backwards
compatibility is a commitment to obsolescence. It therefore makes sense to
reserve room in the numbering scheme to be clear and honest about when
backwards compatibility has been broken. The major number is the normal
place to do that.
Just my .00002 cents.
mark