[auganov]

His core opposition is to introducing breaking changes under the same namespace. SemVer is the leading scheme that sanctifies such practice.

[DEADB17]

Wouldn't changing the MAJOR version be equivalent to changing the namespace without altering the human memorable identifier of the package?

Understanding that changes in MINOR.PATCH are backwards compatible, is the difference between NAME MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH and NEW_NAME MINOR.PATCH significant? They look to me as just two different conventions.

[taeric]

No. Because I don't have a way to keep the old and the new.

That is, the point is that you didn't change my use of the old. You just changed what I actually use. It may work. It may not.

This is especially egregious when I had to up versions to get some new functions, and old versions just happen to have changed.

[DEADB17]

I don't know about maven, but in NPM you can keep both. If you take away the limits of a particular implementation, I think that semantic versioning is a useful convention for the producer of an artifact to convey intent to the consumers.

[taeric]

That is the point. It doesn't convey intent. Outside of the "major versions could break." Which is somewhat worthless.

Consider, you are using a library that expose ten objects and functions. It is on version 1.2.8. it upgrades to 1.2.9. What do you do? You take the upgrade. Usually no questions asked.

It upgrades to 1.3.0, but only to add an eleventh function. What do you do? Probably take it, because you don't want to be behind.

It upgrades to 2.0. reason is "things have changed.". However, they kept the same function names. You think you can make the upgrade fine. Because, well they have the same names. However, you can't know, because some body thought it wise to reverse arguments of some functions. Which thankfully, is a compile time fail. What else changed, though?

[DEADB17]

Sorry @taeric, I can't reply to your post directly.

I do think that the intent of the producer is being communicated (unsafe to upgrade, safe to upgrade with new features, safe + automatic improvements).

I'm not disagreeing that "spec" adding more metadata to have better granularity and potentially reducing the amount of manual work is a good thing. But in the absence of it, "semantic versioning" is an improvement over safe and unsafe versions being indistinguishable.

[taeric]

No worries. In the future, you can almost always get a reply button by clicking directly on a post. (Click on the "time since post" to get to the direct link.)

I think I see the point. Yes, he is using hyperbole. However, I have found it is more accurate than not. In particular, the point that many projects feel a lot more cavalier about doing breaking changes.

[jjnoakes]

Perhaps, but he repeatedly claimed that the minor and patch numbers conveyed no meaning, while dismissing the semver spec as a manifesto.

But if he read and understood it, he'd know those were important numbers. Maybe moreso than the major version.

Perhaps he should have argued his actual stance more, instead of the strawman stance. That put me off.

[sheepmullet]

From the point of view of a library consumer why should they care about the patch or minor versions at all?

Isn't later = better?

[jjnoakes]

Because if you start relying on something new or fixed in x.2.z of your dependency you want to make sure anyone using your code isn't using x.1.y.

[sheepmullet]

And doesn't automatic dependency resolution make this a non-issue for your consumer?

Edit: I.e. If you declare your own dependencies then tooling should ensure anyone who uses your code uses the same dependencies.

It doesn't work this way in Java world due to technical limitations, but it can in JS world

[jjnoakes]

Consumers may want to use a different version.

Perhaps they want a newer one (bug fix, security fix).

Perhaps they want an older one (since another dependency was tested against an older version of the dep in question).

Semver gives you a way to decide what ranges of versions should be safe to move between in order to satisfy all of those occasionally conflicting requirements.

[sheepmullet]

Explicitly limiting your consumers to a specific version of another library is a breaking change. You have introduced a very specific dependency and are requiring the consumer to honour it.

By semvar rules you should be updating the major version?

[prodigal_erik]

That limitation is healthy. If versions 1.1 and 1.2 of a class exist and I'm foolish and determined enough to use both in the same process (via multiple classloaders), Java will still ensure that I can't accidentally give a 1.1 instance to a callee expecting a 1.2 instance, or vice versa. Version mismatches at call sites fail quickly and loudly with classloading exceptions.

I think a hell of a lot of NPM packages only appear to work by accident, and over time they'll fail because of sloppiness about this.