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08-09-09, 07:43 AM   #41
Donnaterassi
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fwiw

When I had a major problem with ARL, Ackis provided me with an unpublished revision. Minion never tried replace my version (r2119) with the published version (r2109). Curse always did, so I "ignore"d it on curse, track it on minion.
My problem with minion is that it doesn't want to ignore permanently. You know, mods on the Ace framework that cannot be patched, except at curse. I still see them, with big red warning.
Speaking of red warning, I see red, I think "Stop and check this, it could be important" and so I do. However, if I could ignore permanently (reliably) then curse updater could babysit the ace mods, and minion - everything else.
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08-09-09, 09:19 AM   #42
Vyper
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Originally Posted by anisa View Post
silly argument, a "working standard" would insist on a meticulous [1.01 .. 1.09 .. 1.11]...
And this is exactly my point see this post just a few above yours telling my my questions is silly and saying the exact opposite.

Originally Posted by Myrathi View Post
I tested the theory by asking various different members of my family and friends your question. Unequivocally, they all thought that 1.1.11 was greater than 1.1.2 and a couple thought my question was actually very silly (both being as non-technical people as you're likely to get).
In other words... your clear convention is not so clear. If you take a moment and actually read my original post, you'll see where I mention why I might use each and how the scheme gets modified for a situation. But we are also getting hung up on this example, which was never meant to be all encompassing. My point wasn't that the major.minor, or major.minor.revision versioning is bad or has to be ambiguous. My point was that there are many different factors that affect ones choice of versioning scheme, including but not limited to: target audience, version control system (not all of us use SVN), and project team organization.

Originally Posted by anisa View Post
if you produce something and don't give a damn about the people who use your product, your endeavour is not an altruistic one but just an ego trip to "put yourself out there.

what we seem to have are programmers who bandy about the "we do this for you and you don't appreciate us" excuse for a mere, "i just want to see my name next to something so i can look accomplished.

the botttom line is, are you writing something you can be proud of, or are you writing something to fill a gap within yourself?
As for telling me I don't give a damn about my users/product because I picked use a versioning scheme you don't like, well... it sounds like you are exactly the kind of user that I don't give a damn about. Any user who leaps to the assumption that because things aren't already exactly the way they want, without taking into consideration that they may be the way they are for a reason, and without even bothering to open a dialog with me about why they are the way they are, well... those are the ones I don't care about.

Last edited by Vyper : 08-09-09 at 09:34 AM. Reason: edited from grammer and clarity
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08-09-09, 10:00 AM   #43
Psychophan7
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What if Minion compared the date an addon was updated to the date modified tag of the addon's folder? I'll use TomTom as an example:

Date on WoWI: 08-05-2009 10:31 AM
Date modified on local machine: 08-06-2009 2:52 AM

Because the local date was changed more recently than the date of the newest version, we could assume that I have a newer version.
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08-09-09, 10:33 AM   #44
lilsparky
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Originally Posted by Psychophan7 View Post
What if Minion compared the date an addon was updated to the date modified tag of the addon's folder? I'll use TomTom as an example:

Date on WoWI: 08-05-2009 10:31 AM
Date modified on local machine: 08-06-2009 2:52 AM

Because the local date was changed more recently than the date of the newest version, we could assume that I have a newer version.
dates work well, i would say, but it's possible that the local dates could get confused. i would think, tho, that dates could certainly be used for at least warning of possible problems. messed up dates would rarely (if ever) get set back in time, so the worst to happen would be false positives. minion could also make sure to install by deleting the old folder (as an option) so that bad folder dates could be reset.
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08-09-09, 12:44 PM   #45
Myrathi
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...or keep a cache of "DateTime of last update" on a per-AddOn basis.

Date/Time is also an entirely valid update scheme.. simply not quite as generally robust.

Originally Posted by Vyper
In other words... your clear convention is not so clear.
Their response made it surprisingly clear, actually, since they said exactly the same as I'd have said and I've an extremely technical background. I fully expected the non-technical folk to respond differently to me but they didn't. They surprised me due to the fact they agreed. :D

If you take a moment and actually read my original post, you'll see where I mention why I might use each and how the scheme gets modified for a situation. But we are also getting hung up on this example, which was never meant to be all encompassing.
I understand your reservations on the matter, I just don't agree with them all. I can agree to disagree. :)

As for getting hung up, I fully agree. :P



...it's also really, really bizarre "responding to myself". (I've used Vyper as a moniker - with that exact spelling - outside the scope of the interwebs, for well over 17 years. People that refer to me by that handle have quite often said that I can seem to be in several places at once: does this make them kinda right? ;) Hehehe. Seriously freaky, though, dude. Seriously freaky. :P)
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08-09-09, 03:59 PM   #46
Vyper
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Just one other thing I'd like to throw in there: I'm not convinced that version numbers should be the deciding factor anyway.
It's not unheard of to discover a serious bug in already released software (including addons) which was not discovered in testing. If this instance, the author may well decide to roll-back to a previous version until they can get it fixed. If however Minion is only updating by version number, it's not going to roll back 1.0.2 to 1.0.1. You could of course re-release 1.0.1 as 1.0.3, but that introduces a regression in your release line, which is generally considered bad practice.
Personal opinion, and I'm sure there will be plenty who disagree, the best thing I think Minion can do is to update the users addons to the release listed as current on WoWI, and users have to take resposibility for ignoring those addons which are not updated as frequently on WoWI as Curse.
No amount of software can ever eliminate user responsibility.
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08-09-09, 04:38 PM   #47
Myrathi
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Originally Posted by Vyper View Post
No amount of software can ever eliminate user responsibility.
On this, we are in complete agreement.
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08-09-09, 04:56 PM   #48
Psychophan7
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Originally Posted by lilsparky View Post
dates work well, i would say, but it's possible that the local dates could get confused. i would think, tho, that dates could certainly be used for at least warning of possible problems. messed up dates would rarely (if ever) get set back in time, so the worst to happen would be false positives. minion could also make sure to install by deleting the old folder (as an option) so that bad folder dates could be reset.
I'm not sure I understand what you mean. How would dates get confused? The only thing I can comprehend in this post is using dates for warnings and deleting folders.
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08-09-09, 05:02 PM   #49
Myrathi
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Originally Posted by Psychophan7 View Post
I'm not sure I understand what you mean. How would dates get confused? The only thing I can comprehend in this post is using dates for warnings and deleting folders.
The date pulled from a website isn't guaranteed to be in the same timezone as that of the user, so that's one inconsistency. The other problem is a common one where an archiver or such extracts files with either their original save-date or the new date they're being extracted. Sometimes the local date on the computer is just... wrong.

There are a lot of possibilities for date errors. Not all of them are immediately apparent and that makes date/time-based updates trixy.
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08-09-09, 05:47 PM   #50
Vyper
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Originally Posted by Myrathi View Post
The date pulled from a website isn't guaranteed to be in the same timezone as that of the user, so that's one inconsistency. The other problem is a common one where an archiver or such extracts files with either their original save-date or the new date they're being extracted. Sometimes the local date on the computer is just... wrong.

There are a lot of possibilities for date errors. Not all of them are immediately apparent and that makes date/time-based updates trixy.
The other problem with dates is that not everyones computers clock is set correctly, (you'd be surprised how many people can't figure even something like that out).
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08-09-09, 07:02 PM   #51
lilsparky
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Originally Posted by Psychophan7 View Post
I'm not sure I understand what you mean. How would dates get confused? The only thing I can comprehend in this post is using dates for warnings and deleting folders.
folder dates can be updated by all sorts of activities. for example, browsing images can often create thumbnails (depending on the os and app) which would reset the times for those folders to the current time, making them seem updated even tho all you did was look at an icon or background image.

basically, dates are a nice hint, but shouldn't be considered highly accurate in this context.
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08-11-09, 11:03 PM   #52
Ackis
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Eh how would you find out the version of my latest release then?
http://www.wowinterface.com/download...ecipeList.html
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08-12-09, 02:26 AM   #53
Doomlord
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Force the authors to use a unified versioning system. Problem solved, everybody is happy, except the authors maybe *grin*
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08-12-09, 09:26 AM   #54
Seerah
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Originally Posted by Ackis View Post
Eh how would you find out the version of my latest release then?
http://www.wowinterface.com/download...ecipeList.html
You're evil, Ackis.

/huggles
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08-13-09, 10:40 AM   #55
YrDaDy
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problem

I didn't read through the pages etc to see if it has already been said, just informing... but the program likes to freeze on me when I search for an addon. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.. only way for me to than continue is to open task manager and end task.. start it back up and continue doing what I was doing.

It just froze for me 5x in a row, I got mad enough that I'm manually installing addons now and figured I'd post something on the feed back.
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08-13-09, 12:03 PM   #56
Ragnaar
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Here is another "just a user" reply to this thread. I have read all 3 pages of this thread btw.

Here is how I download addons now. I go to each site (Curse, WoWI etc), open up my favorites page on each site, and I look at the version number and compare to my open window that has Windows Explorer up and showing my folder that contains my already installed addons. If I can't tell in a glance whether it is an updated addon (by version number) then I immediately switch to the date. Between the two I can tell in a flash if it is indeed updated and then... I actually read the change log...gasp. And I decide from that whether I need to actually DL that addon. I learned all these little tricks from reading these and other forums. I do this for all 94 addons that I currently use. Sometimes after a patch it might take me an hour to update all my addons. After a patch is the worst of it, but I refuse to live without my addons.

We, as end users, want a replacement for WoWMatrix. And we want one that works well too. I don't use Curse because of the same problem that's being discussed here. Replacing current, up to date addons with either old versions or other versions with the same name, type of problem. I find it easier to use my own processor to make the decisions as to DL or not. I got really spoiled by the WoWAce downloader, now that worked really well.

Some of you seem to think that people can't figure out or be bothered by version numbers. Like software is the only thing that uses versions huh? Or the fact that Blizzard themselves uses version numbers and our current addons are "out of date" when a new patch hits. Yeah we are just idiots, I mean we have to figure out YOUR versioning now. Honestly, I don't care about your versioning, I just use it to determine whether I need to update your addon and yes I can actually read several of them.

From an end users point of view, all I see here is a few addon developers not wanting to conform to a suggestion that would help the rest of the community because of "why?". As an end user I don't understand your reluctance to conform to a standard. We, as people, conform to standards everyday of our lives. And this is such a minor thing that would have a major impact on Minion and how it works. It has already been admitted in this thread that indeed standardized versioning would make things much easier for Minion. I mean, some of you make it sound like it some kind of a major deal to having a standard. Sheesh people, it's a WoW addon for heavens sake. It is just NOT that big of a deal.

As far as the argument that you would have to get Curse and everyone else to conform to it also, I will reply with a question, "How did other standards get adopted?". We all know the answer, someone with some vision just started "using" it and everyone else just followed along. And I am sure that if you sent an email to Curse and WoWUI to think about adopting it they would give it some serious consideration (after all they are having some of the same problems). What did we see a few months ago? Didn't Curse and WoWI collaborate on finally killing WoWMatrix. And didn't you all have to force a standard make that happen? And don't say no, sheesh I have to click one extra time to DL from Curse now...gasp. I mean you can at least ask for their compliance or suggestions on a new standard that everyone could live with. Honestly, the excuse that "no one will agree to that" without asking first just doesn't cut it with me.

Oh and some of you addon authors are totally right in that I don't have to use your addon if I have a problem with you or your attitude. I quit using WoWMatrix when I found out how they were doing business, because I didn't agree with that at all. I quit using several addons when the whole debate about "donations" was going on. And I can certainly quit using some addons if they don't want to conform to a versioning standard. No problem.

Finally for you people that control and run WoWI. I can't believe that you would be shy at this idea. Look at what you do just on this site, from how you moderate these forums to what you make addon authors follow to post their addons here. Is a standard for version numbering that will help Minion get off the ground be a bad thing to add to the list? As an end user I would have absolutely have no problem with it. All it would take is for you to just do it and the rest of community would jump on the bandwagon. Go ahead and take the lead, it's ok in this instance.
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08-13-09, 12:51 PM   #57
AsheruWolf
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The biggest issue is the fact that not everyone uses the same system of saying this is how I am going to number my addon. Unless everyone could agree to do the same format having a program that would check every possible combination of what you can use as a valid number for version numbers would make for one heck of a huge program. What is in place now works for the most part. Just give it time and see what comes out you might be surprised.
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08-13-09, 01:02 PM   #58
forty2j
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Originally Posted by Ragnaar View Post
As an end user I don't understand your reluctance to conform to a standard. We, as people, conform to standards everyday of our lives. And this is such a minor thing that would have a major impact on Minion and how it works.
Software versions have existed since, well, the beginning of software.. and you still can't get agreement on whether 1.01 is before, after, or the same as 1.0.1. This is a problem that is at least 40 years old, and I don't see WoWI making any headway in solving it on their own.

Personally I like the "rXXX" numbers.. makes it plainly obvious that one version is higher than another, and a larger jump in numbers is a bigger upgrade. But pick a standard.. any standard.. and you'll find a third of the developer community arguing about how that standard sucks because it doesn't work in some situations.

If it were as simple as "pick a standard" .. the global computer programming community would have solved it by now.
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08-13-09, 01:22 PM   #59
Cairenn
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Personally, I've always thought that using the date makes the most sense for version numbers. But even if we (anyone who has ever had to deal with versioning systems) got everyone to agree to that as an accepted standard, people would have still their opinions on how that should be, too. Should it be: mm/dd/yyyy, dd/mm/yyyy, yyyy/mm/dd, yyyy/dd/mm, yy/mm/dd, dd/Month/yyyy, etc.? And what about on days when you release more than one version? Does it then become dd/Month/yyyy.a, .b, .c? or /time? or .1, .2, .3?

Yes, it would be wonderful if we could all agree. Yes, we (WoWI) could insist that people have to upload with a specific versioning standard. Do you know how successful we would be at it? Not at all. Hell, it's a battle just to get people to only upload as .zip and .rar. We had originally told people to only use .zip, but finally gave up and allowed .rar as well. And we still are telling people all the time that we won't accept their compression method. Or try to convince people to put a meaningful description. Or, or, or. The only thing that would happen is that a) we would piss off a lot of authors because "why do we have to conform to your way, I don't like your way, I'm going to do it my way, screw you, I'm not going to use your site any more", or b) we just give up again and let them continue to version them the way they want.

As forty2j (and many others earlier in the thread) said, it's not like this is a new issue, and it's not one that really has a solution. It isn't that we are resistant to the idea on its face value, it's that we are realistic enough to know that it just isn't likely to happen.

Last edited by Cairenn : 08-13-09 at 01:31 PM.
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08-13-09, 01:35 PM   #60
CobraA1
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Build numbers.

I've seen many versioning systems use a simple "build number" - a simple number that starts at the bottom and counts up every time it detects a change.

In this case, Minion could provide something similar - an "upload number," which is nothing more than a simple counter that counts up every time the author uploads a new build, and which cannot be changed or modified by the author.

Then, it's simple to check if an upload is more recent or not, and you don't have any time zone translation issues. And you can keep all of the versioning schemes that authors have.
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