r19080 - gnucash/trunk - Bug #616696 - Development version warning string should not include hardcode version.

[Donald Allen]

On Wed, Apr 28, 2010 at 1:40 PM, Derek Atkins <warlord at mit.edu> wrote:
> Don,
>
> Donald Allen <donaldcallen at gmail.com> writes:
>
>> On Wed, Apr 28, 2010 at 1:15 PM, Derek Atkins <warlord at mit.edu> wrote:
>>> Geert Janssens <janssens-geert at telenet.be> writes:
>>>
>>>> On Wednesday 28 April 2010, Derek Atkins wrote:
>>>>> Geert Janssens <gjanssens at code.gnucash.org> writes:
>>>>> > -GNUCASH_LATEST_STABLE_VERSION="2.2.9"
>>>>> > +GNUCASH_LATEST_STABLE_SERIES=$GNUCASH_MAJOR_VERSION.$(($GNUCASH_MINOR_VE
>>>>> >RSION-($GNUCASH_MINOR_VERSION%2)))
>>>>>
>>>>> This logic will fail when we go from 2.x -> 3.0
>>>>>
>>>>> I'd rather this be "hard coded" and we just have a list of places where
>>>>> we need to "fix" the release number when we make a new stable release.
>>
>> I'm going to chime in here. I'm not a gnucash developer, but I can
>> speak from 45 years of professional software development experience.
>> Hard-coding the release number in multiple places and having a list of
>> places to "fix" is doomed to fail. Someone will add a new place where
>> the release number lives and will forget to update the list. Or the
>> release number will change and whoever changes it will forget to go
>> through the list, or get a phone call while doing it, or ...., and not
>> all the places will get changed. I think the release number ought to
>> be in one and only one place, and everything that depends on it should
>> get it from there or from files that are generated by a script from
>> that one source of The Truth.
>
> I appreciate your point of view, however there's just no way to have the
> release number in a single place and have it propagate everywhere it
> needs to go.  In particular, we have at least FOUR places (which are
> effectively different places in Subversion) we need to keep in sync:
>
>  - stable branch
>  - trunk/dev branch
>  - website
>  - docs
>
> There's just no way to put it into one place and "derive" all the rest.
>
> Sure, it makes sense to have it in one place on each branch, which is
> what I think Geert is trying to accomplish.  But there's no way to get
> the dev branch to figure out the most recent stable release number.  It
> kinda needs to be told that.  Similarly, the website needs to know the
> latest stable and latest unstable release numbers.  And the docs....  A
> world unto themselves.
>
> So yes, within a branch it should be in only one place and derived from
> there, but we still need to keep the different branches in place, and
> I'm afraid there just isn't a good way to script that.

Ok -- you know the details and I don't, and given the constraints, it
sounds like you are trying to take into account the kinds of traps I
was talking about. So I'll go back to my taxes (ugh) and leave you
guys alone ...

/Don