Semantic Versioning (Semver) is flawed, and Downgrade CI is required to fix it
February 11 2024 in Julia, Programming | Tags: continuous integration, downgrade, package managers, semver, unit testing, versioning | Author: Christopher Rackauckas
Semantic versioning is great. If you don’t know what it is, it’s just a versioning scheme for software that goes MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH, where
- MAJOR version when you make incompatible API changes
- MINOR version when you add functionality in a backward compatible manner
- PATCH version when you make backward compatible bug fixes
That’s all it is, but it’s a pretty good system. If you see someone has updated their package from v3.2.0 to v3.2.1, then you know that you can just take that update because it’s just a patch, it won’t break your code. You can easily accept patch updates. Meanwhile, if you see they released v3.3.0, then you know that some new features were added, but it’s safe for you to update. This allows you to be compatible with v3.3.0 so that if a different package requires it, great you can both use it! … READ MORE