Experimental Physics and
Industrial Control System

"J. Lewis Muir via Tech-talk" <[email protected]> · Tue, 7 Jan 2020 17:01:12 -0600

Hello!

What is the planned EPICS release series after 7.0?  Will it be 7.1 or
8.0?  If it will be 7.1, is the idea that it would be like the 3.11,
3.12, 3.13, 3.14, and 3.15 series where a change in the minor number (in
a <major>.<minor>.<patch> versioning scheme) allows breaking backward
compatibility?

I'm wishing to plan for how I name EPICS packages that I install, and
I want to name them so that they include part of the version in the
package name so that I can install them in parallel (i.e., side by
side).  This is similar to wanting to install both a Python 2 and 3
package and naming them python2 and python3, respectively, so that they
can both be installed at the same time without conflicting with each
other.

To do the same for EPICS, I'm wondering whether I need to include the
major and minor version, or just the major version in the package name.

For example, I could have packages named epics3, epics7, and epics8,
corresponding to 3.15.x, 7.x, and 8.x, but that will only work if the
3.15 series is the last supported series for the 3.x major version,
and the 7.x series are expected to not break backward compatibility
(i.e., 7.x -> 7.[x+1] does not break backward compatibility).

If the series within the 7.x series (i.e., 7.0, 7.1, 7.2, etc.) will be
allowed to break backward compatibility and will likely be supported in
parallel, then I will want to put the major and minor version into the
package name.  For example, epics315, epics70, epics71, etc.

Thank you!

Lewis

Experimental Physics and Industrial Control System

Experimental Physics and
Industrial Control System