Semantic Versioning Explained
Introduction
As of 20th July 2023, the latest version of Python is 3.11.4 . Note the 3 numbers separated by ‘.’ . Several other programs have a similar version notation, and in this guide we shall be taking a deeper look at the Semantic Versioning Scheme, which is of the above format .
Versioning Schemes
A versioning scheme is a standardized way of assigning version numbers to software releases or any other products to convey information about changes and compatibility . Different versioning schemes are used depending on the context and requirements of the project . Over the years, a variety of versioning schemes have been adopted for various projects, and here is a list of some of the commonly used ones :
- Semantic Versioning (SemVer)
- Date-Based Versioning
- Sequential Versioning
- Calendar Versioning (CalVer)
- Alphabetical Versioning
- Hybrid Versioning
While all these apply to different projects based on the context, Semantic Versioning remains the most popular and widely adopted scheme, owing to its clear and logical structure .
Semantic Versioning (SemVer)
Now that we have a general idea of versioning schemes, it’s time to understand semantic versioning . It follows the format : MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH . Therefore, in the latest Python version, the major version is 3, the minor version is 11 and the patch version is 4 . Let’s take a closer look at these :
MAJOR : This number gets incremented when backward-incompatible changes are introduced to the code . This indicates that major changes or significant updates have been made to the product . For example, a python3 interpreter cannot interpret code written in python2, hence the increment from 2 to 3, get it ?
MINOR : This number gets incremented when backward-compatible changes are made . New capabilities have been added to the software, but the additions don’t break backward-compatibility . For example, if the developers of Python introduce a new feature in Python 3 to improve its performance, this number will get incremented by 1 . Just have one thing in mind, new features that do not break backward-compatibility .
PATCH : This number gets incremented for backward-compatible bug fixes and minor updates that do not introduce new features . These updates should by no means affect compatibility with the previous version .
In addition to the 3 parts, SemVer allows for an optional suffix of pre-release and build metadata . Let’s look at that now :
Pre-release version : If a version is considered as not being stable, or is still a work in progress, we can add a hyphen followed by a sequence of alphanumeric characters eg, alpha.1, beta . The resulting version number will be something like this : 1.0.0-alpha.1 . Note that these versions are usually less stable and may change before the final release !
Build metadata : The version can also include build metadata, which gets appended after a plus sign (+) eg. 1.0.0+35235323 . Note that this does not affect version precedence and is typically used for build identification .
Conclusion
Congrats on making it this far ! I believe you now know what those numbers represent, as well as how you can leverage SemVer in your own software or product releases . You can try breaking down the version numbers of your favorite software and comparing it with previous ones to understand this better . Also, please take time to look into the other versioning schemes as well .
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