version numbers of WD

Hi all,
please bear with me for a moment while I ramble and express my thoughts on WD version numbers.

This is only an opinion of mine.

I have thought for some time now that the version numbers for WD don’t really mean much on updates - these days the letter on the end just seems to go from a to z before the number increments - as could be seen for versions 10.12 and 10.13.

I think increasing the letter is fine for small bug fixes but perhaps for bigger improvements and maybe major changes should result in a totally new version number.

Example was when the graphing routine was extensively changed, although the version went from 10.06j to 10.08 it doesn’t have the same impact that jumping to version 11.00 would have had, as if to say “hey, there is a big change in this version”.

Similarly for the recent new weather selection screen, that could have been version 11.00 as well as a major function had been changed. As it was just the suffix letter was changed - not much of an impact.

Also people may be inclined to upgrade more if the version number increases substantially over time. This time last year WD was on 9.85 and now we are on 10.14i - doesn’t seem much of an advance yet a LOT of excellent changes and improvements have been made.

I just think major updates deserve their own whole version number. And perhaps we don’t need the letter on the end?

As I say these are just my thoughts and I am not trying to force Brian to change things if he doesn’t want to.

Thanks for listening

The version numbering isn’t quite like that for other software packages, but based on the number of significant additions since I started using the software we’d probably be on version 273.05q by now and that would look pretty strange!

Another problem with worrying too much about major/minor version numbers is that the software is now so feature rich, that it’s difficult to decide what is/isn’t a major change. For example, if support for a new weather station type was added, that would probably warrant a major version increment, but if you don’t have that station then what looks like a major upgrade is in reality unchanged for you.

Given the rate of change, if the version number was to be changed, it would probably suit something like yyyymmdd.rel, e.g. 20040722.d would be the fourth change today!

what i do try and do is have it when it gets to a version number with no letter after it, or say only a or b, thats its a good one, and that i have ironed out some important issues

i am always tweaking/improving/fixing things in many places in the program all the time

but sometimes a new version has something not quite finished or fixed right…but it might have had to be released to fix something else