Versions and the commons

The rate limiter Finn installed announces itself as 4.2.1, and that number is a sentence if you know how to read it.

Any numbered release of software is a versionConcept · lights on your mapversionA numbered identifier for one particular release. Naming versions lets a team say we run 4.2.1 and know exactly which code, and which behaviour, they are talking about., and naming them is what lets two engineers say the bug is in 4.2 and be discussing the same code. The three-part shape is semantic versioningConcept · lights on your mapsemantic versioningThe MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH convention: patch releases carry compatible fixes, minor releases add compatible features, major releases may break things. A convention rather than a guarantee, so teams test updates anyway., read right to left: the last number means fixes only, safe to take. The middle means new features, still compatible. The first means things may break, clear your afternoon. A convention, not a law of physics, and teams test accordingly.

Staying current is work

Moving to a newer version is an updateConcept · lights on your mapupdateMoving software from an older version to a newer one. The broad word; a patch is the narrow kind aimed at one specific problem., and the small urgent kind, aimed at one bug or one security hole, is a patchConcept · lights on your mappatchA small update aimed at one specific problem, often a bug or a security hole. The word names both the fix and the release that carries it, and “patch it” means apply that fix now.. Remember the word. Thirteen weeks from now, three days into a feature freeze, a patch is going to arrive with a decision attached, and the whole of that story runs on what you just read.

Software also retires politely. When maintainers mark something deprecationConcept · lights on your mapdeprecationOfficially discouraged by its creators and possibly scheduled for removal. Deprecated code usually still works; the warning exists to give teams time to migrate before the breaking change lands. deprecated, it still works, and the label is a countdown. The organizer API’s v1 from Act I wears exactly this label, and the one volunteer still calling it has been politely warned for a year.

Version numbers are how strangers coordinate a commons nobody owns. Which is a fine thing to be thinking about on the Wednesday Finn tries to merge and discovers a teammate has been in the same file.