[m-dev.] promoted ROTDs

[Paul Bone]

On Tue, Jul 24, 2018 at 11:19:58AM +1000, Peter Wang wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> Continuing on from
> https://github.com/Mercury-Language/mercury/issues/38#issuecomment-405848166
> 
> The master branch seems to be in a good state right now (as it usually
> is), and the start of a month is as good a time as any, so:
> 
> Next week, can we start promoting a recent ROTD as a version of choice
> for users who can't or don't want to use the "Stable" release, but are
> wary of simply picking the latest ROTD in case they happen to hit a
> recently-introduced bug (however rare they may be)?
> 
> A "preferred ROTD" should also be a useful target for packagers who need
> some guidance as to the version to package.

Thank you ;-)

I intend to make more / continue to make the packages for Debian that I
started.

I have a concern that the version number in the package might not sort
nicely.

    See: upstream_version
    and: Version numbers based on dates
    http://www.fifi.org/doc/debian-policy/policy.html/ch-versions.html

    See: Sorting algorithm
    https://manpages.debian.org/wheezy/dpkg-dev/deb-version.5.en.html

I don't think it's important that snapshots sort WRT releases.  As long as
I'm not trying to get the package in the Debian distribution itself
(and I'm not) and if I was, that the ROTDs don't go in the distribution.
Instead it's better just to use two separate package repositories and users
can choose which repository as a way of choosing whether they want a release
version or a snapshot.

Anyway, the ROTD version strings are fine the way they are.  But if you do
decide to change them for the promoted ROTD then it may be good to keep this
in mind.

Thanks.


-- 
Paul Bone
http://paul.bone.id.au