Monday, June 3, 2013

please start your project major version at zero

This post is probably a repeat of something on Coding Horror, but in case it hasn't been stated before, I'd like to make the case for starting your version numbering at zero. Why, well, because some code is available before it has been thoroughly tested and depends on user feedback to determine when the code has enough of the bugs worked out to consider it mature. During this time its version number may be changing rapidly, but the one thing that distinguishes a fledgling package from a robust one is the zero in front of the version number. It says, hey I was just born. I might not be complete. I might have bugs. I might break or die. I'll let you all know when I get the code equivalent of a bar-mitzvah by changing my zero to a one.
if major_version:
    print "I'm mature.",
    print "This is release #%d." % major_version
else:
    print "I'm newish,",
    print "so I might still have some big issues."
Is that so hard?

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