Selecting a versioning convention

How do we name new versions of the code? There are several versioning schemes in use. Let's quickly review a few popular ones.

Serial increments

In this scheme, you just increment the version number in a serial manner for each upgrade, for example, v1, v2, v3, and so on. However, this does not give any information on what a particular release is about. Just by looking at the version number, it is tough to tell whether a particular version introduces a revolutionary feature or just fixes a minor bug. It does not give any information on API compatibility. You can choose this simple versioning scheme if it is a small application with a small user base and a very limited scope.

Note

API compatibility

An Application Programming Interface (API), in simple terms, enables a piece of a program, say a library or an application, to talk to another one using a standard set of functions, methods, or objects.

Imagine a software library car that stores some data on a fancy...