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I wonder why Hugo is still on a <1 version. It has existed for 11 years now. Is it really so hard to design a stable API for themes and content? People in the

I wonder why Hugo is still on a <1 version. It has existed for 11 years now. Is it really so hard to design a stable API for themes and content? People in the comments as well as Julia in the article are mentioning breaking changes. I would imagine committing to a stable API and signaling this through a v1 release would show respect to the time of your users.

dartos 2y ago
In open source projects it’s really hard to have all major contributors agree that all their work is good enough for a 1.0z Herding cats and all that. Also version numbers are kind of meaningless. “1.0” would better be saved for a big marketing push.
- Cheer2171 2y ago
  > Also version numbers are kind of meaningless. Have you heard The Good News about the Semantic Versioning? https://semver.org/ https://semver.org/
  - dartos 2y ago
    I have, yes, but I’ve seen precious few projects actually follow semver. The Linux kernel, for example, explicitly states that version numbers are meaningless. In my experience, semver ends up just being more of a reason to never have a major release rather than a way to communicate breaking changes. I don’t think Hugo uses semver anyway…
    - gregmac 2y ago
      Projects using semver try not to do breaking changes, which is why they don't change major versions often. It works really well for libraries and APIs, but in my experience it doesn't work well for end-user-facing products. If you look at npm packages, a lot use semver.
      - dartos 2y ago
        in semver, if your major version is 0, then any change can be breaking, which, imo, is why semver projects stay pre-1.0 for so darn long. So even with semver, pre major version 1 is pretty much meaningless.
    - johnny22 2y ago
      They are meaningless for projects like the linux kernel. The linux kernel has no stable kernel API and they aren't supposed to break userspace. There's not that much to semantically version without a stable external API.
    - 9dev 2y ago
      Precious few? The entire PHP, JS/TS, and parts of the Python ecosystems are built around Semver. That’s millions of projects. Maybe you’ve just looked in the wrong place?

dartos 2y ago

In open source projects it’s really hard to have all major contributors agree that all their work is good enough for a 1.0z Herding cats and all that. Also version numbers are kind of meaningless. “1.0” would better be saved for a big marketing push.

Cheer2171 2y ago
> Also version numbers are kind of meaningless. Have you heard The Good News about the Semantic Versioning? https://semver.org/ https://semver.org/
- dartos 2y ago
  I have, yes, but I’ve seen precious few projects actually follow semver. The Linux kernel, for example, explicitly states that version numbers are meaningless. In my experience, semver ends up just being more of a reason to never have a major release rather than a way to communicate breaking changes. I don’t think Hugo uses semver anyway…
  - gregmac 2y ago
    Projects using semver try not to do breaking changes, which is why they don't change major versions often. It works really well for libraries and APIs, but in my experience it doesn't work well for end-user-facing products. If you look at npm packages, a lot use semver.
    - dartos 2y ago
      in semver, if your major version is 0, then any change can be breaking, which, imo, is why semver projects stay pre-1.0 for so darn long. So even with semver, pre major version 1 is pretty much meaningless.
  - johnny22 2y ago
    They are meaningless for projects like the linux kernel. The linux kernel has no stable kernel API and they aren't supposed to break userspace. There's not that much to semantically version without a stable external API.
  - 9dev 2y ago
    Precious few? The entire PHP, JS/TS, and parts of the Python ecosystems are built around Semver. That’s millions of projects. Maybe you’ve just looked in the wrong place?