On Sat, Dec 26, 2009 at 6:26 PM, Charlotte Maia <mai...@gmail.com> wrote: > I think it's a very bad idea to truncate version numbers. > Version numbers are important, and there may be a critical difference > x.y.0 and x.y.1. > Plus there is no guarantee that the updated version is better than the > previous one. > Hence a programmer may need to go back to x.y.0 until x.y.2 is released. > > Perhaps there should be an option somewhere to remove existing > installations (maybe there is????), however by default, installing a > new version of a programming language, should not uninstall existing > versions.
A new version of R comes out almost daily or weekly. I don't think many would want to create a separate R directory daily or weekly so there has to be some sensible cutoff somewhere. In particular, its important to distinguish 1st and 2nd level versions with 3rd level versions. I would agree with you for 1st and 2nd level versions but not for 3rd level versions which is what is being discussed here. 3rd level versions - don't have critical differences and - you virtually never have to go back since third level versions are basically bug fixes so I don't think such arguments apply. The fact that one bug fix can generate another bug is more theoretical than a real problem that is encountered. If you did want to go back there is nothing to prevent you from downloading the old version again (although in years of following this scheme I have never had to do it) or using the last 2nd level version. Also if you don't like the whole scheme its only a default, not an operating requirement, so for those few people who want a separate installation for every third level version they could still have it just as anyone can implement the proposed scheme even in the absence making it the default; however, for most people I think that generating a large number of alpha, beta, pat, *.0, *.1 directories is pointless since they will never use anything other than the most recent in any x.y.* series. ______________________________________________ R-devel@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
