Version software

Major releases normally include significant new features. Or the vendor just wants people to pay for the product again. Minor releases may include fixes and new features, but usually nothing ground breaking. Odd numbers being pre-releases and even numbers being finals.

This habit is becoming less and less common though. Build numbers increment with every release, no matter how minor the changes might be. It is automatically incremented by the build process, every time it runs. Many builds are never see publicly released, but they can help in managing the life cycle of the software, by making it easy for QA to uniquely identify a version of the software. Every projects chooses its own convention.

As others have pointed out, one common convention is "Major. Ubuntu versions are "Year. For example, TeX versions are theoretically only bux-fixes forevermore, so their versions are asymptotically approaching pi e. Another method widely used is having an incremental build number. Without any correlation to so called "version". It depends. Stack Overflow for Teams — Collaborate and share knowledge with a private group. Create a free Team What is Teams?

Collectives on Stack Overflow. Learn more. What every digit means in software version 1. Ask Question. When using a CI server, it is also interesting to know what the build number from the CI server is.

Several other information can be added like the machine the build was created on, the build date and time, and so on. Ensure that you don't have to add all of this information manually. This information must be added automatically during your build process. The external version is something you will change manually, but all of the other information must be added automatically. The easiest way is to add this information in a plain text file and add it to your release.

For ease of access, ensure that anyone who wants to view the version information, can easily retrieve it. You can make an "About" dialog in your application or provide an URL where the information can be retrieved.

In a previous blog , I explained how you can incorporate this plugin into your build and how you can use it with, e. Spring Actuator. When you are using another build tool, the above can also be added by using shell scripting, so there is no excuse for not adding the information to your build. The steps to take are:. Decide for your software application which external versioning scheme to use.

It doesn't really matter which one you choose, as long as it is comprehensible for your users. Ensure from the beginning of your development that the internal version information is automatically generated during your build, this will prevent any unclarities and will save you a lot of time.

See the original article here. Thanks for visiting DZone today,. Edit Profile. Sign Out View Profile. Over 2 million developers have joined DZone. How to Version Your Software. It's a situation most developers face. In this post, we take a look at some strategies you can use to help effectively version your software, and why you need to. Like 9. Join the DZone community and get the full member experience.

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