Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!unmvax!polyslo!hoyt
From: hoyt@polyslo.CalPoly.EDU (Sir Hoyt)
Newsgroups: news.software.b
Subject: Patch dates or Patch Numbers
Message-ID: <13376@polyslo.CalPoly.EDU>
Date: 10 Aug 89 16:50:10 GMT
References: <28272@teknowledge-vaxc.ARPA> <1989Aug7.195904.13429@utzoo.uucp> <1989Aug8.170802.20975@vicom.com> <1989Aug9.164003.20669@utzoo.uucp>
Reply-To: hoyt@polyslo.CalPoly.EDU (Sir Hoyt)
Organization: WanderLand, San Luis Obispo
Lines: 56

In article <1989Aug9.164003.20669@utzoo.uucp> henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes:
>of prerequisite patches that is in *every* patch.  (I agree this would
>get unwieldy if there were 57 of them, but there won't be.)

	Are you sure?  software of the nature tends to live a very long
	time.  New hardware comes out and presto problems.


>[stuff about date-base patches deleted]

	What I do not like about date-based patches:

	People talk about patches in news groups.  And if some
	says 'X program at -patch does this....",
	I find this harder to cope with then 'X program at patch level N ...'.

	Because level N says there have been N patches to the program,
	whereas  says the program was last patched on .
	This is different.  Information has been lost with the date-based
	patch scheme.  You can no longer tell how many patches there have been
	by simply looking at the version and patch level.

	Now you say 'look at the patch file, all previous patches are listed 
	there'.  Well what about a binary that spits out the version and patch 
	level?  Is it suppose to list every patch? or just the latest?

	Also if you see the patch of  appears, you can't tell
	if you are missing any patches by looking at the patch-date itself.
	Because a date does not hold that information. Whereas a patch
	level number does.

	One must also remember why patch levels exist, and that is
	to make *OUR* lives easier. They are there so that we can
	easily see if program X has become out of date. Nothing more.  
	And if the quit making our lives easier they are worthless.
	Patch level numbers instantly tell you if you have missed
	any patches, patch dates do not.


>more problems than it solves.  So far I see little evidence for this.
>Convincing us is going to require good arguments, not endless repetition
>of poor ones.

	Evidence?  Well I know ( from read news.software.b ) that
	C news has patches.  But I do not know how many. Because
	people talk about -patch, not patch number N.
	To me this is a problem, I have to spend more of my time
	trying to figure out how many patches there are. I for one
	have enough to do already.


-- 
John H. Pochmara				 A career is great, 
UUCP: {csun,voder,trwind}!polyslo!hoyt		 But you can't run your 
Internet: hoyt@polyslo.CalPoly.EDU		 fingers through its hair
							-Graffiti 4/13/83