views:

245

answers:

2

I would like to use Guava in a project, but my PM doesn't like the "r05" suffix, saying that it looks like it's not stable. In fact, the part I need is only the Google-Collections 1.0 which is now deprecated (my PM doesn't like that word either).

So I don't really get the versioning of Guava/Google-Collections.

I'm currently doing the development with GC1.0, but if possible I'll switch to a more recent and stable version.

+5  A: 

You can tell him you have our permission to think of it as 5.0 instead of 05 if that helps.

All our releases will look like guava-r## ... Unless we actually release monthly for 8 1/3 years, in which case we'll get to guava-r100 and really screw up the whole lexicographical order thing.

What exactly does your PM mean by "not stable"? It's not a great idea to assume anything positive or negative from a version number. Tell us what kind of assurances he's looking for and we'll try to answer for those. "Stable" doesn't mean much (after all, the deprecated library is as stable as it gets, because we're never going to change it!).

(Note that questions like this, which are not "how-do-I" or "why-didn't-it" questions, are welcome on our mailing list (linked from our project page at http://guava-libraries.googlecode.com), while I'm actually not sure whether the stackoverflow community considers them entirely appropriate.)

Kevin Bourrillion
Well thank you for the answer: I'm feeling a bit relieved knowing this.The PM for this project simply saw this and explained that the "*-r##" part is not like the usual "*-#.#.#" that we usually see on the Internet. Technically speaking he prefers to see google-collections-1.0 than guava-r05. Maybe it looks too much like "*-rc1" (for release candidates) which is nearly stable but might still contain issues.(Sorry for using SO for this: I remember having read to use SO in case of questions. Anyway, I think I can still delete it if needed.)
Frór
Well, stable *is* in common parlance: many projects are structured to have stable releases, dev releases and nightly builds. It is, of course, unreasonable for the PM to expect all projects to work this way though.
CurtainDog
A: 

Hi,

is there somewhen somehow a r## planned which does not have the Beta annotation ?

I remember the google collection talk you gave in which you emphasized that people should wait for the 1.0 release if they dont want to have API which might change.

In productive use we would love to use Guava, but with having Beta annotated features its too "dangerous" and making sure that no ones using them is too tedious.

So is there any plan to release a non-beta version ?

Thanks :=)

martymcfly