Something in the software world which seems to be a trend is “inflated” version numbers. For example, take a look at Google Chome’s version history: version 1 was released in December of 2008 and less than two years later they are on version 7. On the other hand, Firefox’s version history during the same time period has “only” gone from version 3 in June 2008 to 3.6.
Obviously version numbers do not indicate that version 7 of one product is twice as good as version 3.6 of another, but does the average user think along these lines?
As a developer, I base versioning of software I write on the relative framework it is built on. The version will stay 1.x forever until the “guts” of it are drastically altered. So to me, when I see significant jumps in major version numbers it appears as trickery.
Mac has been on OS X (10) forever and Windows 7 has a kernel version of 6.1. So do version numbers really matter any more?
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Do users really compare version numbers as worth/quality of software??? I’m a developer myself, so I don’t see it that way…I’d be interested in hearing opinions.
I think they do matter. They give you some measure of the maturity of a product. Of course, that doesn’t always mean that version 6 is better than version 5. It is true that a lot of people will avoid products with low version numbers, especially 1.x versions, as there’s an assumption that there will be more problems and less features.
Now some companies have skipped or bumped up version numbers because of this. If it helps sales, it’s hard to blame them.
when I develop software the next version is going to be a brand new version of it not just a bunch of bug fixes.
A lot of companies rush software development for sales.When you can’t really tell much of a deference between version 1 & 2
The version numbers are useful for identifying the particular variant of software you’re using, and knowing which of two versions is the newer (but certainly not which is better. IE 6 anyone?). I disagree with David because the measure of maturity of a product is seldom identifiable from the version number unless you are already familiar with the product. One company’s software could go through 20 versions between 1.0 and 2.1, while another could go through 10 versions between 1.0 and 5.0. Either company could have released all 10 or 20 over a period of 5 years. Or they could have done so within 2 years. Knowing that either scenario is possible, I don’t put any weight into a version number outside of software that I’m familiar with. It would be nice if there were more consistency within the world of computers, but it’s an annoyance we’ve all gotten used to. And what about when the company uses a numbering system that looks like an IP address? Or when Windows 7 calls my Nvidia driver 8.17.11.9703, but to download it from Nvidia, you have to find 197.03. I’ve just gotten used to it, I suppose.
The version number is certainly no good for comparing two different software packages, in any measure. For example, you can’t say Chrome 7 is more mature than FireFox 3.6.
I meant that you assume higher versions of a product are more mature than lower versions. I.e., I know people who avoided certain software until it was version 3+ because they thought they were avoiding bugs, etc with the earlier versions. Not always true, of course, but usually.
Point taken in regards to people who avoid 1.x or 2.x versions of software, while I don’t give as much weight to those numbers, I understand why people do. I certainly didn’t mean to imply that different software packages could be compared by version number.
I’m using Autodesk Revit MEP 2011 at work right now, which is on it’s 6th or 7th release (including the software’s previous name, Revit Systems). Watching how much it’s improved and matured over the last 3 releases, I wish I could have avoided using it until the 10th or later release.