[Haskell-cafe] Why does Haskell PVP have two values for the major version? "A.B..." and a couple other questions

[Tobias Dammers]

IIRC, the rules (for libraries at least) are (correct me if I'm wrong):

- When you introduce a new entity in the public interface, such as a new
  typeclass, a new exported type, a new exported function, etc., you
  should bump the *second* number. This is because such introductions
  are only breaking changes when the consumer imports your modules
  unqualified and completely (i.e. `import The.Module`, not `import
  qualified The.Module as TM` nor `import The.Module (foo, bar)`).
  Importing your module "safely" will not break anything because the
  previous entities are still there, and the new ones simply won't be
  imported, so they cannot cause any clashes.
- When you change the signature of an existing public entity, you should
  bump the first number, because this is a potential breaking change
  even with "safe" imports.
- When you remove an existing public entity, or an entire module, or
  rename either, you should also bump the first number, for the same
  reasons.

And then on the consumer side, this means you can decide to either fix
your dependencies to just the first version number and import everything
"safely" (qualified / per identifier), or to fix them to 2-part version
numbers and use "dangerous" imports.

>From my experience, however, this is neither watertight nor something
everyone follows religiously, so in practice it isn't all that useful
after all. Part of the problem is probably that there are no tools in
widespread use that would block a release under a "wrong" version
number, although I don't see any reasons why this should be technically
impossible to do.

On Mon, Dec 15, 2014 at 08:42:48PM -0500, Zach Moazeni wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> Forgive me if this is a frequently asked question, I've searched the web
> and can't find an answer. I originally sent this to the Beginners list and
> someone said this might get more responses here instead.
> 
> What is the history that led up to the PVP
> <https://www.haskell.org/haskellwiki/Package_versioning_policy> specifying
> two values as the major version?
> 
> I come from other tools that primarily use http://semver.org/ (or a
> variant) and I'm confused in what cases I should bump "A" but not "B" (or
> bump "B" but not "A")?
> 
> A concrete example: If I make backwards incompatible changes to a package
> whose latest version is 1.0.x, should the next version be 2.0.x or 1.1.x?
> What sorts of things should I consider for choosing 2.0 over 1.1 and vice
> versa?
> 
> 
> Another question, by far most packages I have encountered either lead with
> a 0 or a 1 for "A". Does that have some bearing on the long term stability
> that package users should expect in the future?
> 
> Finally, if "1.0.x.." is meant to convey a level of long term support, does
> "B" get rarely used? Since "C" version bumps to include backwards
> compatible additions, and "D"+ for backwards compatible bug fixes. (I know
> "D" isn't technically a PVP category, I'm just relating it to the patch
> version of semver).
> 
> Thanks for your help!
> 
> -Zach

> _______________________________________________
> Haskell-Cafe mailing list
> Haskell-Cafe at haskell.org
> http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe


-- 
Tobias Dammers - tobias at twokings.nl - 070-3457628 - www.twokings.nl
Maandag t/m donderdag van 9.00 tot 17.30
Voor dringende vragen, mail naar support at twokings.nl