Hi Dan--

	For what it's worth...

	Perhaps a more rigorous release-naming scheme would be nice? I was surprised to see the current 2.3 release called "beta", and then get a whole bunch of new things put into it.

	I give each of my releases a major number, a minor number, a stage, and an iteration number. For example, "release 2.4 alpha 3". The major and minor number indicate a particular predetermined list of features. I start major numbers at one and minor numbers at zero. The stage can be one of four things: 

- alpha, meaning "this release doesn't implement all the features described by the major and minor numbers". I sometimes add to the current feature list during this stage, but never after (only to the next feature list). 

- beta, meaning "this release implements all the scheduled features, but has problems"

- gamma, meaning "this release implements all the scheduled features, and will be declared final if no more problems are reported within a certain length of time" 

	or 

- final, meaning... final. 

	If the minor number is zero, I usually omit it, e.g., "release 4 beta three". I start iteration numbers at one. If the iteration number is one, I usually omit it unless I'm fairly sure there will be a second interation. There is only one iteration for a final release. :)

	Perhaps such a scheme would lead to a smoother release process, and even more frequent releases?


-C


--
Craig Latta
composer and computer scientist
craig.latta at netjam.org
www.netjam.org
latta at interval.com
Smalltalkers do: [:it | All with: Class, (And love: it)]