Version Numbers

I am a software developer, and have been for more than 40+ years.

Love your products - All 4 of them as of today.

Please lose the last 4 digits of your version number control that you publicly display, and keep it for for internal purposes only.

It is confusing. Why would you release Product V 4.xx.yyyy and then release Product V 4.xx,yyzz.

The crazy part is that Windows (+other utilities) only show the version as Product V 4.xx, as the remaining 4 digits do not get registered in the "REGISTRY".

Who are you trying to CONFUSE?

Get a better management of your version control.

Sorry. Critical, YES. Just trying to help.

Ram Todatry.

~email address removed by moderator to avoid spamming

Major/sub major/minor is pretty standard for software projects.

It is confusing. Why would you release Product V 4.xx.yyyy and then release Product V 4.xx,yyzz.

Factually incorrect.

I have never seen a "2-digit-major"."4-digit -minor" version string in which the minor consisted of either

4 identical digits,

or 2 pairs of digits.

If you scrutinize the past versions it should become self evident that the last 4 digits are a progressive sequence,

probably snapshots of the total quantity of code changes since the beginning.

e.g.

CCleaner 4.10.4570 Released: 23 Jan 2014 (4 weeks ago) Technical Details | Change Log

CCleaner 4.09.4471 Released: 19 Dec 2013 (2 months ago) Technical Details | Change Log

CCleaner 4.08.4428 Released: 25 Nov 2013 (3 months ago) Technical Details | Change Log

CCleaner 4.07.4369 Released: 24 Oct 2013 (4 months ago) Technical Details | Change Log

CCleaner 4.06.4324 Released: 25 Sep 2013 (5 months ago) Technical Details | Change Log

CCleaner 4.05.4250 Released: 26 Aug 2013 (6 months ago) Technical Details | Change Log

CCleaner 4.04.4197 Released: 25 Jul 2013 (7 months ago) Technical Details | Change Log

CCleaner 4.03.4151 Released: 25 Jun 2013 (8 months ago) Technical Details | Change Log

CCleaner 4.02.4115 Released: 27 May 2013 (9 months ago) Technical Details | Change Log

CCleaner 4.01.4093 Released: 25 Apr 2013 (10 months ago) Technical Details | Change Log

http://www.filehippo.com/download_ccleaner/history

That suggests that version 4.02 has advanced from 4.01 by 23 off enhancements/fixes

and 4.10 needed 99 fixes because the developers were especially busy - probably struggling to keep up with the madness of Chrome :(

The 4 trailing digits may be VERY useful on occassions.

e.g.

A little while ago there was a quickly encountered bug in a newly released version,

and I seem to remember that it was rapidly fixed after the bug was repeated,

and the new version had the SAME major suffix of 2 digits, but an increased 4 digit minor suffix.

I forget which version had the error, BUT

If you have not updated frequently and are using, for example 4.07.4365, that was superseded by 4.07.4369,

and 4.07.4365 may be doing you harm - you either need to update OR revert to an earlier version.

The trailing four in a public release is good for informing users of a quick bug fix change, I vote for keeping them

I'd also vote for keeping it, and CCleaner doesn't in my opinion have annoying version numbers and is more-or-less in line with allot of other software I use when it comes to how the version is listed.

Some programs have weird version numbering such as one program going from version 3.0a to 3.0b, and then 3.1. What's weirder is how something can be at a high version number from years of releases lets say 15.2 and then out of nowhere they go back to 2.0, talk about confusing. :huh:

Some others use the date as the version, yet again weird but it sort of makes since with Linux derived stuff that's feverishly active such as daily or weekly builds (makes much more sense with anti-virus/anti-malware definitions though):

20140227

I guess it really isn't for us to fully understand why someone chooses a particular format, just something the developer probably uses for their own sanity and we just have to succumb to it and put up with it.

Some programs have weird version numbering such as one program going from version 3.0a to 3.0b, and then 3.1. What's weirder is how something can be at a high version number from years of releases lets say 15.2 and then out of nowhere they go back to 2.0, talk about confusing. :huh:

Lol reminds me of Miranda instant messenger which never even made it to 1.0 in its at least decade long development life

Firefox and Chrome are classic examples of companies not following any sort of normal, standard versioning.

FF goes from a major release (based on the version number) to a couple of bug fix release to another major version number.

It's all about major jumps to give a visual effect rather than reflecting a major code release.

Back in my coding past we only had a N.nn standard where N was a major release entailing either a complete rewrite of the code or a system wide new feature and nn were either minor improvements or bug fixes. Hmmm, the good old days. :)

CCleaner 2.00 was a complete rewrite IIRC, from vb to c++

And 3.0 was an interface and added major features

Lol reminds me of Miranda instant messenger which never even made it to 1.0 in its at least decade long development life

Things like that have the potential of getting out of hand if they're too number happy which can result into people missing an important update due to not seeing a specific number difference. At least with software that can check for a new version either automatically or via the Help menu missing an update isn't an issue so much anymore.

Back in my coding past we only had a N.nn standard where N was a major release entailing either a complete rewrite of the code or a system wide new feature and nn were either minor improvements or bug fixes. Hmmm, the good old days. :)

It would be nice if those were good now days! Some developers still go by that.