[ZWeb] http://www.zope.org/Products/Zope/ release sorting

Tim Peters tim.peters at gmail.com
Sun Jul 24 12:20:30 EDT 2005


[Michael Haubenwallner]
> The currently on zope.org installed version of 'CMFPackage' simply
> reverse sorts the container swpackages on the version string,
> thus creating some unexpected results which has led to user requests in
> the past.
>
> Does anyone object to (or has knowledge of problems with) changing the
> Version strings in a way that makes the listing look 'more' appropriate ?

I did that for old ZODB releases late last year.  For example,

    http://www.zope.org/Products/ZODB3.1

The listing made a lot more sense then, but had the unwanted side
effect of changing the "last modified" column to 2004-11-06 for all
final releases in the ZODB 3.1 line.  It's not good (IMO) to lose the
original release date, but better that leaving the recent releases
near-impossible to find (incl. having the "Latest Release" blurb in
the upper right name an ancient release!).

> I suppose that between 20 and 50 SWPackage objects need to be touched.
> Rules for changing the version-strings would be discussed/tested here
> before modification.

What's worked well so far is always to give new releases 3 digits
(e.g., ZODB 3.4.0a1, not ZODB 3.4a1), and to stick "final" on the end
for final releases.  For ZODB, I expect that scheme will break with
the eventual ZODB 3.2.10 release (because "ZODB3.2.10final" sorts
before, e.g., "ZODB3.2.9final").  That is, it's an easy scheme so long
as it works, but breaks down when the _number_ of digits in a
(conceptual) field changes.  I don't know a sane way to worm around
that short of changing the comparison function used during the sort.


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