This post originated from an RSS feed registered with Java Buzz
by Weiqi Gao.
Original Post: Software Version Numbers Are Lame
Feed Title: Weiqi Gao's Weblog
Feed URL: http://www.weiqigao.com/blog/rss.xml
Feed Description: Sharing My Experience...
Two things are happening on my computer now. First, I'm running my daily Fedora Core 3 up2date, which tells me a new version of Firefox, Firefox 1.0.2 is available. Second, my Firefox 1.0.1 browser is showing me the corresponding Slashdot story, titled "IT: Mozilla Firefox 1.02 Released."
A visit to the Mozilla homepage confirmed that the version number is 1.0.2. Slashdot is definitely wrong.
But, Slashdot is not the only one to blame. The version number itself shares at least half the responsibility. It has a usability issue. It is too similar to a number, yet is not a number. The human brain will do its best at trying to make it a number. And dropping that extra dot is a perfect way of achieving it.
Thnik abuot all the msesaegs with trasnposed charatcers that you might have receievd in the psat few yaers.
Now read the last sentence again. This time pay attention to the spelling. Isn't it any wonder that a normal person would try to read 1.0.2 into 1.02?
We as software developers talk about usabilities all the time, yet we can't even make our software version numbers usable!
Previous Topic
