Newsgroups: news.software.b
Path: utzoo!henry
From: henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Patch dates or Patch Numbers
Message-ID: <1989Aug17.171000.23302@utzoo.uucp>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
References: <1989Aug9.164003.20669@utzoo.uucp> <6717@dayton.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 17 Aug 89 17:10:00 GMT

In article <6717@dayton.UUCP> jad@dayton.UUCP (J. Deters) writes:
>A correctly used patch system will need numbers.  Not want.  Need.
>If you want to know where your program is in relation to the patch you have,
>a system of Release.Revision.PatchLevel is almost mandatory...

Assuming that you are talking about one of those pieces of, uh, software
that is constantly changing, with bales of new features and swarms of
new bugs regularly showing up.  My opinion of such mushware is very low
indeed; Geoff's opinion is unprintable.

Particularly for the news transport subsystem, where specs are quite solidly
fixed by backward-compatibility constraints, we see no fundamental reason
why a well-written piece of software cannot stabilize fairly quickly and
then remain essentially unaltered unless and until it is replaced by a
complete rewrite on radically different principles.  This is the model
we are working towards:  software, not mushware.  We may not achieve it,
but we are determined to try.  (Indeed, we are not interested in trying 
the alternative.)
-- 
V7 /bin/mail source: 554 lines.|     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
1989 X.400 specs: 2200+ pages. | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu