App versions

[espruino-discuss2]

Posted at 2022-04-27 by rigrig

Right now apps all have a version like 0.xx, which seems kind of silly, and suggests they are all unfinished.
Maybe we could move to something like yyyy.mm.dd[1]? That way you can easily see when an app was last updated, and we also get dates in changelogs.

I guess it might look a bit messy/weird in the app store with a mix of old/new versions.

[1] extending to yyyy.mm.dd.x if we have two versions on the same day

[espruino-discuss2]

Posted at 2022-04-27 by nicoboss

I would love that too ! it s always difficult to remember if an app you have not yet installed is newer or not

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Posted at 2022-04-28 by @gfwilliams

Honestly it's already a nightmare trying to get everyone to put version numbers in even x.yy format. Someone else was asking about xx.yy.zzz a while ago too, and I'd rather not have a bunch of different app version number types. At least everyone understands what a single version number means.

We actually already have an auto-generated list of when apps are updated at https://banglejs.com/apps/appdates.csv so it'd be possible to just extend the App Loader such that hovering over the version number showed the date that an app was last updated if someone wanted to add a PR for that?

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Posted at 2022-04-28 by rigrig

Honestly it's already a nightmare trying to get everyone to put version numbers in even x.yy format.

My main gripe is that x=0 for all apps, which (to me at least) looks like they are all some pre-release version.
I get how changing the format isn't going to work, but maybe we could change the suggested first version to 1.0, and encourage people to bump x a bit every now and then?

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Posted at 2022-04-28 by nicoboss

My main gripe is that x=0 for all apps, which (to me at least) looks like they are all some pre-release version.

x could =1 as soon as the app is stable and had an suficient amount of feedback ?

extend the App Loader such that hovering over the version number showed the date that an app was last updated if someone wanted to add a PR for that?

That d be great ! I m not aware of how adding a PR though

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Posted at 2022-04-28 by @gfwilliams

I understand about the 0.xx seeming like it's beta, but really is it more than a minor annoyance?

x could =1 as soon as the app is stable and had an suficient amount of feedback ?

Yes, I think that could make sense. I guess with some kind of review system we could maybe have a better way of saying 'yes, this is fine now'.

But this just feels like one of those things where sure, it's not ideal right now. I could spend a bunch of time trying to change all the version numbers, and maybe would break some things, and some people would get confused, but it feels like maybe there are more important things for everyone to work on fixing than whether the version numbers start with 1 or 0.

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Posted at 2022-04-28 by uname

In the opensource world, version numbers below 1 have been used forever, I don't see this as a big problem.
The changelog already in place helps, possibly I'd put a date on the changelog, I don't know how complicated that would be.

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Posted at 2022-04-28 by rigrig

it feels like maybe there are more important things for everyone to work on fixing than whether the version numbers start with 1 or 0.

You're probably right, as for showing the date: PR with last update in hover

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Posted at 2022-04-29 by nicoboss

it feels like maybe there are more important things for everyone to work on fixing than whether the version numbers start with 1 or 0

sure !

You're probably right, as for showing the date: PR with last update in hover

of course, and thank you !

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Posted at 2022-04-29 by @gfwilliams

PR merged - thanks!

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Posted at 2022-04-30 by HughB

Nice one !