CentOS - Apr 2015 - [CentOS-announce] Release for CentOS Linux 7 (1503 ) on x86_64

On Thu, April 2, 2015 9:52 am, Always Learning wrote:
>
> On Wed, 2015-04-01 at 22:54 -0700, John R Pierce wrote:
>
>> you guys sure get your panties in a bunch over something as silly as
the
>> iso file name.
>
> You may wear them, many of us don't :-)
>
>> if you don't like the name, rename it... sheesh.
>
> Its about a consistent and logical approach to identifying versions,
revisions and differences between changes.
>
> How is the latest numbering system an improvement ? Marks idea of
>
> {major version}-{sub version}-{mmdd} ......
>
> is clearly a good proposal
>
After all I decide to add "<rant>" tag at the very beginning of
my message
instead of just assuming it. Bu before that:

Thanks a lot to CentOS team for the great job you guys are doing!

<rant>

My guess is the lack of understanding of (and sympathy to) your, Mr.
Always Learning, point stems from people missing the very basic thing.
I'll try to explain what I mean.

Us, human, usually do consecutive counting as follows:

A:

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 ...

Now, as portion of version identifier doesn't follow this way of counting
anymore, it is akin counting like:

B:

231 2735 2746 3458 5216 ...

This is still in ascending order, still:

1. whereas in case A given you have [sub]version number 4 you definitely
know that adjacent previous is 3 and adjacent following will be 5. Case B
is different: unless you have the whole row of legal numbers in front of
you, you will not be able to guess whether 2746 and 3458 are consecutive
versions, or there is one or more versions between them.

2. comparison of two version in case A easily reveals which is earlier and
which is higher, in case B it is not quite so (you can try to time
yourself on comparison of random natural number in 10000 range and compare
that to the case of natural numbers 0-9, you will know what I mean), and
hence prone to higher chance of error (and don't second guess me: I always
has A+ in mathematics in school and university ;-). This is just a trivial
human psychology...

Valeri

PS I do realize that these big numbers are quite likely just a subset of
indeed consecutive natural numbers, say, counting builds, and only the
ones that are good enough to be released for public use are visible to
public. Still, developers usually have their magic way to keep track of
their consecutive builds and relation to still consecutively numbers
"good" build released to public. Abandoning that is not wise at the
very
least. It converts product from being transparent to getting obscure for
everybody. Which only serves the goal of diverting people to much poorer
IMHO alternatives, MS Windows to name one (the only OS of many I know
whose vendor tells you it is unsafe to use it without 3rd party software -
antivirus).

</rant>

You should guess all I say is ran, so I decided to drop resemblig tag at
the beginning ;-)


++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Valeri Galtsev
Sr System Administrator
Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics
Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics
University of Chicago
Phone: 773-702-4247
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

On 04/02/2015 05:08 PM, Valeri Galtsev wrote:
> Us, human, usually do consecutive counting as follows:
> 
> A:
> 
> 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 ...
> 
> Now, as portion of version identifier doesn't follow this way of
counting
> anymore, it is akin counting like:
> 
> B:
> 
> 231 2735 2746 3458 5216 ...
I believe your argument works fine since:
CentOS-7-x86_64-DVD-1503.iso
CentOS-7-x86_64-DVD-1507.iso
CentOS-7-x86_64-DVD-1512.iso
CentOS-7-x86_64-DVD-1606.iso

note, this is YYmm to indicate age, and not serial numbers.


-- 
Karanbir Singh
+44-207-0999389 | http://www.karan.org/ | twitter.com/kbsingh
GnuPG Key : http://www.karan.org/publickey.asc

On Thu, Apr 2, 2015 at 11:14 AM, Karanbir Singh <mail-lists at karan.org>
wrote:
> >> 231 2735 2746 3458 5216 ...
>
> I believe your argument works fine since:
> CentOS-7-x86_64-DVD-1503.iso
> CentOS-7-x86_64-DVD-1507.iso
> CentOS-7-x86_64-DVD-1512.iso
> CentOS-7-x86_64-DVD-1606.iso
>
> note, this is YYmm to indicate age, and not serial numbers.
But none of us tells us at a glance how these relate to the 'when it
is ready' status of the CentOS port of RHEL 7.1.  Without additional
information I wouldn't know if any/all were done before/after.

And I'm curious as to why the reasoning is different for the iso names
and the directory in vault.centos.org.

-- 
   Les Mikesell
    lesmikesell at gmail.com

On Thu, 2015-04-02 at 11:08 -0500, Valeri Galtsev wrote:

> A:
> 
> 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 ...
That is called an arithmetic progression (from my school days)
> B:
> 
> 231 2735 2746 3458 5216 ...
does not resemble a geometric progression.

Lets have a LOGICAL numbering system.  How about

	Centos 6.6-1503 ........

derived from {major}{sub}{yymm}.

But what happens when 2 or more revisions occur within the same month ?

Will we have Centos 7.1504 and 7.1504a and 7.1504c or will someone
decide to use 7.1505 (= May 2015) whilst still in April ?

Clarity is important in all things 'computer'.

Valeri

> 1. whereas in case A given you have [sub]version number 4 you definitely
> know that adjacent previous is 3 and adjacent following will be 5. Case B
> is different: unless you have the whole row of legal numbers in front of
> you, you will not be able to guess whether 2746 and 3458 are consecutive
> versions, or there is one or more versions between them.
> 
> 2. comparison of two version in case A easily reveals which is earlier and
> which is higher, in case B it is not quite so (you can try to time
> yourself on comparison of random natural number in 10000 range and compare
> that to the case of natural numbers 0-9, you will know what I mean), and
> hence prone to higher chance of error (and don't second guess me: I
always
> has A+ in mathematics in school and university ;-). This is just a trivial
> human psychology...
Maths was my favourite school subject too. 


-- 
Regards,

Paul.
England, EU.      Je suis Charlie.

On Thu, 2015-04-02 at 17:14 +0100, Karanbir Singh wrote:
> I believe your argument works fine since:
> CentOS-7-x86_64-DVD-1503.iso
> CentOS-7-x86_64-DVD-1507.iso
> CentOS-7-x86_64-DVD-1512.iso
> CentOS-7-x86_64-DVD-1606.iso
> 
> note, this is YYmm to indicate age, and not serial numbers.
Being a so-called 'westerner' where people read from Left to Right, it
is illogical to read to the end of a string only to determine the
version number.

Arabs and Jews too (I think) read from right to left, but I am sure they
will also appreciate the simply logic of having

	Centos 7-nnnnn-x86_64-DVD.iso

or even better

	Centos 7-2-nnnnn-x86_64-DVD.iso

Why change anything unless the new idea is better than the previous ?


-- 
Regards,

Paul.
England, EU.      Je suis Charlie.