Why are patch numbers seemingly arbitrary and inconsistent?

Question

Like, you'd think they'd go from patch 1, to 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, etc. but instead it seems that whenever software gets patched it's done in a manner that has no consistency to it and seems utterly arbitrary. Like, 3.3.3, then maybe 3.5, then jump all the way to 4.0 (4.0? Redundancy...) on a whim.

Is there a methodology to this madness that I'm simply not seeing?

Answer 1

Usually, it's major.minor.build.revision. As in 3.4.1 would be major version 3, minor version 4, build 1.



It's really up to the developer how they want to number their versions. Some companies do it to "catch up" to another company's version of a product (competition.)



Some jump ahead to a much later version (3.1 to 4.0 or even 5.0 for example) if enough new features have been added to warrant a completely new version.



Now, would you rather be on v3.4.1, or revision #37462? :)

Answer 2

this is because of a versioning system that the company uses. basicaly, when a patch is relased, it may fix or change more then one thing at a time. and while they are in the process of fixing the bugs or changing code, they have multipul versions at a time. for example.



current software version is 3.0 but there are 5 known problems with it. so each problem gets it's own subversion, ie problem 1 fis becomes 3.1, problem 2 is 3.2 ect... this is because, they have to make sure the fix doesn't affect anything else. Once all the 5 problems have been fixed, they are merged into a new version version 3.6. Which will be relaseed.



i hope this help.

Answer 3

Yes, there is. Traditionally, version numbers are incremented by smaller numbers when minor tweaks are made to a program and extra decimal places are added to indicate a smaller fix to the preceding version. Whole number jumps are reserved for the times when major changes in functionality are made. For example: iTunes recently updated to version 9.0 when it added many new features to support iPads, better podcast support, and a lot of features that weren't in the 8.X series. 9.0 had a few bugs, so they released 9.1... which absolutely sucked and broke my computer so badly that I had to reformat the drive and reinstall everything. 9.1 was so bad that they went straight to 9.2 which was tweaked inside Apple to 9.2.0.61 before it was ever released into the wild. The 9.X series will be updated with smaller revision numbers until there's another major change in functionality, and then the program will be updated to 10.0.

Answer 4

There's usually multiple compiles before a patch is released.

If you make minor changes, then your version will be a sub version (3.3.3).

Major overhauls are indicative by their major revision number (v.5 v.6, etc).

Answer 5

I've thought about this some too.