Package version numbering in the case of language update

Community
1

With the recent release of Julia 1.0, I’m facing the following question: as I upgrade my packages to support the latest version of Julia, how should I increase their version number? According to semantic versioning

Given a version number MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH, increment the:
MAJOR version when you make incompatible API changes,
MINOR version when you add functionality in a backwards-compatible manner, and
PATCH version when you make backwards-compatible bug fixes.

It doesn’t seem to me like these specification cover the particular case of language updates. What is the general feeling here about this? Which number should be increased?

2

Registering a new version of your package that drops support for earlier Julia versions require at least a minor version bump. (Thats what most packages have done so far.)

4 Likes
3

Before Julia 1.0 there was a recommendation to package developers to be conservative in version numbering, so most of the packages were numbered with versions < v"1.0".

I guess now it doesn’t make sense anymore.

4

I guess it still makes sense for packages to start with v0.1.0 (as generated by default with pkg> generate) and increment gradually, going to v1.0.0 when the package has reached maturity. This should be independent of whether the language itself has reached a v1 release.