[Biopython-dev] Switching to PEP440 compliant versioning for our development code

[Peter Cock]

I meant to send this to the dev mailing list, CC'd, but
any comments from the wider Biopython community
are also welcome.

Peter

On Thu, Jun 23, 2016 at 2:14 PM, Peter Cock <p.j.a.cock at googlemail.com> wrote:
> Dear Biopythoneers,
>
> Currently we use a simple two level versioning scheme
> of 1.N for Biopython (currently at 1.67), which is all fine for
> the recent PEP standards which are important for when
> we release code via PyPI, and determining dependencies
> and ordering releases.
>
> However, as currently documented on our release process,
> in between releases we append a plus, currently 1.67+,
> and these versions are not PEP440 compliant.
>
> http://biopython.org/wiki/Building_a_release
>
> The closest equivalent in the standard to 1.67+ (which we
> are using to mean after 1.67 but before 1.68) would be
> a post release, e.g. 1.67.post
>
> https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0440/#post-releases
> https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0345/#version-specifiers
>
> However, having read PEP440, I think it would be clearer
> to use 1.78.dev (a development pre-release of what will
> be 1.68) instead?
>
> This still allows for alpha, beta and release candidates
> should we need them, e.g. 1.78.dev, 1.78a, 1.78b, 1.78rc,
> 1.78 etc.
>
> i.e. Rather than currently using 1.67, 1.67+, 1.68, 1.68+, ...
> I am proposing we use 1.67, 1.68.dev, 1.68, 1.69.dev, ...
>
> Note that pushing development releases to PyPI is frowned
> on, and I am not advocating we do that. This should only
> be of interest for people who have installed from our git
> development repository.
>
> Peter