[webkit-dev] Best way to track feature evolution from release-to-release

[Ojan Vafai]

On Wed, Jan 5, 2011 at 9:38 AM, Darin Adler <darin at apple.com> wrote:

> > The user agent string in Chromium cites, for example,
> "AppleWebKit/534.10". Does this refer directly to the /tags/Safari-534.10
> code base? In other words, this is just an example of an organization
> chosing to use a tag created by another organization? Some refer to the
> Safari-(5##) number as a WebKit release, so it is important to clearly
> understand the distinction.
>
> I believe that many others use WebKit version numbers based on the ones
> Apple uses. I think this is a good practice, although it might be something
> worth refining. We do want a WebKit version number to mean something
> cross-platform, but it’s not obvious how to accomplish that and meet all the
> other goals of folks using WebKit.
>

FWIW, Chromium uses the major and minor version numbers listed
in WebCore/Configurations/Version.xcconfig. We'd be happy to use something
not tied to Apple's release process as long as Safari did the same. Giving
web developers one version number to make sense of is important. It would be
extra awesome if they could easily map from an SVN revision to a version
number. Frequently a developer will see that a bug is fixed, but won't know
what the WebKit version number will be.

Some ideas:
-Use the svn revision number. That has the downside of being tied to SVN
should we want to change version control systems.
-Have a file checked in that corresponds to the WebKit "version" at that
revision. Any port is allowed to increment the number in that file whenever
they please. It's monotonically increasing, not tied to a given version
control system or to an individual port's release process.

Ojan
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