Re: [xml-dev]Changing Namespaces Between Specification Versions (was: XI

["Pete Cordell" <petexmldev@codalogic.com>]

Original Message From: "Andrew Welch"
> 2009/4/22 Michael Kay <mike@saxonica.com>:
>>> I concur with Michael's observation, but I don't think a
>>> version attribute alone is sufficient for good versioning.
>>
>> It's not enough on its own, but it gets you a long way, provided of 
>> course
>> that the value of the attribute is not just an opaque string but a 
>> pointer
>> to a set of rules that define the contract between sender and recipient
>> associated with that version.
>
> For an alternative opinion on versioning, see Robin Berjon's posts in
> this thread:
>
> http://markmail.org/message/fmg75xevxdo4hunv
>
> "Personally, I would recommend that we don't :) Version identifiers
> are largely useless and experience shows that users use them wrong
> (e.g. a bunch of SVG out there that's labelled as 1.1 is really 1.2,
> but people just copy-paste the root element). "

An interesting thread.  I agree with most of the steps, but not sure I agree 
with the conclusion (i.e. don't bother with version numbers).  At least 
version numbers let you know what the developer was aiming for even if they 
failed spectacularly to achieve it!  That helps those in the know debug it, 
even if it's no help to Joe Public.

That said, there isn't a one size fits all versioning strategy, and that's 
why it needs to be considered at the start of a project.

Pete Cordell
Codalogic Ltd
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