Against 1.0

Something I’ve been holding in too long but that I want off my chest:

The notation 1.0 for a first public release doesn’t really make sense.

• At the major version level, 0 means “pre-public” and “public” starts with 1.
• At the minor version level, 0 means “public” for major version >= 1.
• At the minor version level, 0 is not used for major version 0.

So 1.0 uses 0-based indexing for minor versions and 1-based for major versions.

• Except when it doesn’t. Got it?

I suggest that 0 should always mean “pre-public” and “public” should always start from 1.

• Full public releases should have major and minor version numbers >= 1.
• So a project’s very first full public release could perfectly well be 1.1.
• n.0 should be reserved for a public beta of n.1 (a pretty normal thing to have).

From consistency we get an obvious way to semantically version a public beta.

• I don’t know about you, but I’ve found this otherwise impossible to do nicely.

Obligatory xkcd: