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 They are there so that we can easily see if program X has become out of date.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