Re: [Pythondialog-users] pythondialog is not dead!

[Peter Å. <as...@ce...>]

(Trying to catch up...)

Florent Rougon  wrote:

>> Btw, does anyone have the email adress to Chris Dew? I've failed to find 
>it.
>
>I put in Cc the e-mail address he used on Sept. 16, 2008.

Thanks!


>OK. I wrote that because
>http://pypi.python.org/pypi?%3Aaction=search&term=pythondialog&submit=search
>listed you as the Author, but the Owner must be "paulproteus" indeed
>(not contacting him before we get out of the current mess, though).

Sounds great.



>> You don't use any kind of version control system? This is really bady, 
>IMO. I
>> tend to avoid software that lacks proper version control.
>
>Ahem. I did try to commit version 2.09 to the svn repos I set up in
>2004, but the operation hung. Maybe some dump/reload cycle of the DB
>would be needed. However:

Are you talking about an Sourceforge SVN repo, or something else? Do
you still have this problem? If SVN doesn't work for you, you can
always use something else; there are plenty of VC systems available...


>About the "really bady" part: you are free to avoid using my software if
>you are not confident about its quality. Although concerning

Sure, that's the beauty of Open Source. However, as I said, it might
be confusing if we have multiple "forks" using the same project
name. And as always, I think we should avoid forks, and instead try to
cooperate, unless there are any fundamental disagreements.


>I am a careful and rational person, and for such simple things as
>pythondialog, version control brings basically nothing to me. I don't
>make modifications "just to see if it is going to fix $bug", with the
>intent of rolling back if not. I keep previous versions on my hard
>drive, and I make backups on offline media. This is basic version
>control. When I do an involved modification, I make a backup copy
>beforehand, etc. The software I write, be it public or not, usually
>has relatively few bugs once I declare it usable. I don't think the
>pythondialog case makes an exception here. You are free to disagree,
>but please provide some evidence then.

Yes, I disagree :-) IMHO, you can't do any kind of serious development
work without version control. For example, if you add some new
feature, you want of course to see the "diff" between the new version
and the old version, which lacks this feature. You can certainly do
this by making a new copy of the software every time, but that is
certainly not more practical than use a real VC.


To summarize: Using a version control system is a requirement for
me. If future collaboration/cooperation will be done without one, I'm
afraid you have to count me out.


>> I *hate* version numbers like 2.09.
>
>It is your entire right, however I am not sure how rational it is.

There are many arguments against that scheme. For example, try to read
the version number "two zero nine" on the phone. The guy listening
will most likely interpret this as 2.0.9. Another argument: prefixing
numbers with zero usually indicates octal numbers.


>I am definitely *not* confusing 2.1 and 2.10 (in version string
>context).

But other persons or software might.


>As said, 2.09 sorts better in directory listings (until, of course,
>2.99) and shouldn't confuse anyone, since 09 == 9 in numeric
>context. I didn't intend to prolonge this scheme ad vitam æternam,
>but the sorting argument plus remaining consistent with previous
>numbers made me think that waiting for 2.10 before switching
>transparently to the more conventional versioning scheme was a
>perfectly sane course of action.

Sure, I could buy that approach, but the Sourceforge project has a
file release, done 6 years ago, called "2.7". Switching *back* to use
the zero prefix doesn't make any sense, so I don't think we should
make any new release on Sourceforge using that old version scheme.

Best regards,
Peter Åstrand