KVR Audio

aciddose · Post by **aciddose** » Fri Jun 08, 2012 3:40 am

these aren't 'major versions', these are releases.

it's a simple concept really. rather than showing the users the version numbers based upon revisions or whatever else, you simply start counting from one. at the fourty ninth release, it'll be called release 49.

to understand why this makes more sense you'd have to be a programmer. things have changed a lot in the last twenty years. now, it makes the most sense to create a release branch and only patch bugs on that branch while maintaining the development (master) branch as usual. then you don't need to worry anymore about needing to make things compatible with your new code before releasing an update.

in the old method, it was a major problem because you ended up generally with one of two possible situations:

1) development was ceased after a release and new features were severely limited to prevent making the code incompatible if bugs needed to be patched.

2) development continued allowing new features to introduce compatibility problems where "work-in-progress" components would need to be finished before a new release could be made, meaning bug fix patching couldn't happen quickly.

most software developed with plain old branchless SVN repositories suffers from a wonderful combination of these two. the rate at which the software can be developed is severely limited at the same time as the rate at which bugs can be fixed is severely limited.

now most large projects have taken to branching on release to eliminate this problem. many have also used branches to develop new features which are merged into master after being stabilized as a single complete unit.

when you decide to release r3, you create an image of the source code at that specific moment in time. now, when someone reports a bug in r3 you can open that "frozen image", called a branch, fix the bug exactly as it was at the time of the release and update the release. "r3b", "r3c", "r3d" if you like.

meanwhile you have been adding new features in the master branch (the "work in progress" code) which are not yet finished. each time a bug is fixed in the old release branch it is marked and merged forward into the master branch.

when you finish the new features and test them, you create a new "r4" release branch and the process starts all over again.

this can get a lot more complex and can provide a huge amount of flexibility to the developers. it allows changes to the code to be tracked with extreme detail.

this strategy is a huge improvement compared to any other older versioning system.

lfm · Post by **lfm** » Fri Jun 08, 2012 5:29 am

aciddose wrote:these aren't 'major versions', these are releases.

it's a simple concept really. rather than showing the users the version numbers based upon revisions or whatever else, you simply start counting from one. at the fourty ninth release, it'll be called release 49.

this strategy is a huge improvement compared to any other older versioning system.

Thank you explaining - but I beg to differ

Who is helped by - now Firefox 5 is out - now is Firefox 6 out - and this is minor updates/releases.

You know when major version is revised - that means significant changes and addons were made.

Minor fixes and addons are just updatering minor versions, or even revisions as number or lower case letter - X.xb etc.

What you suggest is disaster!!!!!
- Sorry, I have no mercy on this.

When Reaper 4 came out you know it's something significant compared to the 3.x you have. And when you buy Reaper you have +2 major version updates included.

When Windows 8 comes you know it's something significant to Windows 7.

Firefox is really alone in that battle!!!!
You are really confusing the world of users out there!!!

I been doing programming for a living since 30 years back, and would never even think of such a stupid system. It's one thing what the versioning tool you use tells you and what users are guided by.

What is actually the version of current Firefox?
I've got 5.0.

manducator · Post by **manducator** » Fri Jun 08, 2012 6:23 am

I didn't know that numbers were that important. I switched from IE to firefox long time ago, activated the automatic updates and never looked back. Works great for me. Who cares if it's version 5 or version 49?

paterpeter · Post by **paterpeter** » Fri Jun 08, 2012 6:24 am

lfm wrote: I use Mozilla Thunderbird as mailclient and love it to death. Best I discovered.

+1

My current internet computer is still XP, and run MSIE 7.0 on it if I have to. If upgrading to 8 certain parts of Visual Studio does not display as it should anymore.

That's a bit weird and probably shouldn't happen. What version of VS are you using?

One thing that's really great about the Mozilla software is that it's dead easy to create backups with MozBackup. Have you tried backing up Outlook? It's a pain. With MozBackup backing up Thunderbird (and FF) is super easy. Load the backup and you're exactly where you were.

manducator wrote:I didn't know that numbers were that important. I switched from IE to firefox long time ago, activated the automatic updates and never looked back. Works great for me. Who cares if it's version 5 or version 49?

You are right, of course. But companies do care, for example. Most IT departments are hesitant to upgrade major versions because it might break something. I think it's a psychological thing as well. Whole version numbers typically mean larger changes. They make it easy to determine the "generation" of a software. While whole numbers are closer how we count in our daily life, most of us (I suppose) have gotten used to the x.y scheme. It tells us something.

EvilDragon · Post by **EvilDragon** » Fri Jun 08, 2012 6:29 am

lfm wrote:Firefox is really alone in that battle!!!!

How about Chrome?

lfm wrote:What is actually the version of current Firefox?
I've got 5.0.

I'm on Aurora 14.0a2. (Pre-release)

paterpeter · Post by **paterpeter** » Fri Jun 08, 2012 6:33 am

EvilDragon wrote:
lfm wrote:Firefox is really alone in that battle!!!!
How about Chrome?

The major difference is that you almost never hear about the version number of Chrome. What's the current version - lemme check - ah, 19.something. Good to know. But whenever FF releases a new version it goes through the media - tadaaa, Firefox 34 is out, download it now. And that's why the numbering scheme works much worse for FF than for Chrome IMO.

mkdr · Post by **mkdr** » Fri Jun 08, 2012 7:10 am

1.0
3.11
95
98
2000
ME
XP
7
8

EvilDragon · Post by **EvilDragon** » Fri Jun 08, 2012 7:31 am

Haha. Vista never existed.

chokehold · Post by **chokehold** » Fri Jun 08, 2012 7:39 am

mkdr wrote: 1.0
3.11
95
98
2000
ME
XP
7
8

1 -> 2 -> 3.0 (3.1 was not a major) -> 3.11 (beginning of NT) -> 95 -> 98 -> 2000 and ME -> XP -> Vista -> 7 -> 8

(I'm neglecting the NT 3 to 5, Server, CE and Mobile versions, because they are not "Consumer PC" related.)

So yah, those were 11 major versions, each very different to the last, from 1985 to now - that's 27 years.
Mathematically, that's a new major version every 2.5 years.

I can live with that.

It's not that they brought out Win 1.0 in 1985, Win 3.0 in 1990 and then raced to Win 8 ... still in 1990, outputting a new "major version" every few weeks.

Imagine that whenever Windows bugs you like a little kid about "Daddy, I wanna download and install an update, may I?" it's not just an update - but it's the next major version.
You'd be using Windows 356 in a year!

Really, maybe the versioning works better for developers, but WTF, I'm not a browser developer.
I couldn't care less.
You care how and when I wash my undies?
Didn't think so.

I'm a programmer myself, so I know enough about versioning to know that what happens internally doesn't have to be made public. If it's v10 or v11 or v13 for a programmer, then it may be just that.
But unless there have been major changes (like the introduction of tabs, x64 compatibility, a new GUI, blablabla) there is no need to confuse "dumb" and uninterested users with programmer-specific versioning preferences.

F*cking call it "Firefox". Done.
Put a "branch number" to it, but keep it "Firefox".
Unless something drastic is changed, then change it to "Firefox 2", that would not interfere with the branch numbers.

Firefox is actually getting crappier each day, at least on OSX.
Crashes, freezes, disappearing Mouse cursors, lots of unnecessary stuff.
Don't know why I even bother using it anymore.
Maybe because I think Safari sucks and Chrome is ... somehow weird.

lfm · Post by **lfm** » Fri Jun 08, 2012 7:40 am

paterpeter wrote:
lfm wrote: My current internet computer is still XP, and run MSIE 7.0 on it if I have to. If upgrading to 8 certain parts of Visual Studio does not display as it should anymore.
That's a bit weird and probably shouldn't happen. What version of VS are you using?

Thanks.

VS 2005. When MSIE 7 you get some xml-based stuff error messages show up in gui ok, red and formatted and everything - with MSIE 8 it becomes an unformatted one line long text that takes forever to decode what is says. Odd...so I reverted to MSIE 7.

I got and installed VS 2010, but I didn't like it. So I reinstalled xp from scratch and started over.

This XP computer is 8 years old, so I guess it has to go some day. Maybe MSIE 8 works better on W7.

lfm · Post by **lfm** » Fri Jun 08, 2012 7:48 am

mkdr wrote:1.0
3.11
95
98
2000
ME
XP
7
8

Yes, Microsoft was down that lane for while. We were to feel how old the OS were by having names that referred to year of release.

- I want this years model, so I upgrade right away - kind of.

W2000 were Windows 5.0, XP were 5.1, Vista 6.0 and we know the rest.

But they changed a bad habit and went back to versioning again - bless them.

...well almost - Visual Studio still are yearbased.

lfm · Post by **lfm** » Fri Jun 08, 2012 7:53 am

EvilDragon wrote:
lfm wrote:Firefox is really alone in that battle!!!!
How about Chrome?

I never tried it - it may be good/disaster or something in between.

Google scares me a bit - what they know about you. I dare not try it either.

egbert · Post by **egbert** » Fri Jun 08, 2012 7:54 am

It is annoying that the new versions break plugins. They mess with AVG's addons and a bunch of other things I use. They want to force these on the user but the addons depend on the work of others you don't have so much time to devote to chasing FF's tail. I gathered some time back that the version numbering scheme was updated to more closely match that of Chrome. The versioning system for releases sounds great - what you call the end result is another matter entirely.

mkdr · Post by **mkdr** » Fri Jun 08, 2012 8:13 am

EvilDragon wrote:Haha. Vista never existed.

Haha! Subconscious tries to erase bad memories

I mean i even used it for a while.

aciddose · Post by **aciddose** » Fri Jun 08, 2012 9:14 pm

lfm wrote:When Reaper 4 came out you know it's something significant compared to the 3.x you have. And when you buy Reaper you have +2 major version updates included.

bullshit.

reaper 4.0 had pretty close to zero differences compared to the last version of 3.x.

Now it is firefox 21! (will update as needed!)