[debhelper-devel] Some thoughts about named compat level and version numbers

[Axel Beckert]

Hi,

citing from debhelper(7):
> It is possible to opt-in to the open beta testing of new compat
> levels. This is done by setting the compat level to the string
> "beta-tester".
>
> Packages using this compat level will automatically be upgraded to
> the highest compatibility level in open beta. In periods without any
> open beta versions, the compat level will be the highest stable
> compatibility level.

Wouldn't it make sense to have a named compat level which always
refers to the most recent recommended or stable (is there a
difference?) level? I.e. introducing a named level "stable",
"recommended" or "default" which now is equivalent to "10" (and would
have been equivalent to "9" until very recently) and more or less
corresponds to debhelper's major version...

Apropos version numbers: I'd be very happy it if debhelper would go
back to a major.minor.micro (aka break.feature.bugfix) syntax (i.e.
more or less semantic versioning[1]) instead of the (IMHO ugly and
unreadable) date-based minor versions which we had during most of the
9.x releases.

		Regards, Axel
-- 
 ,''`.  |  Axel Beckert <abe at debian.org>, http://people.debian.org/~abe/
: :' :  |  Debian Developer, ftp.ch.debian.org Admin
`. `'   |  4096R: 2517 B724 C5F6 CA99 5329  6E61 2FF9 CD59 6126 16B5
  `-    |  1024D: F067 EA27 26B9 C3FC 1486  202E C09E 1D89 9593 0EDE