Re: Why are pkgsrc version numbers named after Dewey?

[Roland Illig <roland.illig%gmx.de@localhost>]

Am 20.08.2022 um 16:51 schrieb Greg Troxel:
> Roland Illig <roland.illig%gmx.de@localhost> writes:
>
> > Why are the version numbers of pkgsrc packages called Dewey numbers? The
> > concepts of a decimal classification scheme and a version number are
> > completely distinct.
> >
> > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dewey_Decimal_Classification
> > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_versioning
> >
> > I'd like to completely eliminate this term from pkgsrc. Just because Ant
> > and FreeBSD didn't come up with a better term more than 20 years ago
> > doesn't mean that we should stick to this confusing mistake.
>
> I have no idea; I always found it mildly strange but never enough to
> expend energy on it.  But certainly we can see if somebody else does.

Well, I do have the energy. :)

> Can you explain how big a change this is?  Is it renaming
> p5-pkgsrc-Dewey, one comment in mk/, and minor Guide editing?  I don't
> have the perl package installed, so I wonder how much or even if it is
> needed.

* Rename the functions in pkgtools/pkg_install.
* Replace pkgtools/p5-pkgsrc-Dewey with p5-Pkgsrc-Pkgversion.
* Adjust the few packages that depend on p5-pkgsrc-Dewey.
* Adjust the few places where the word is mentioned in comments.

I estimate the necessary work to be less than a day, including testing.
The current function names are unique enough so that a simple text
search reveals all contexts in which they are used.

This only applies to the part of pkgsrc that is visible to me, though.
If someone forked pkgsrc and heavily depends on the name dewey_cmp or
p5-pkgsrc-Dewey, that's out of my control.

Roland