Mame 0.99 is out whats next? 0.100

[MiKman]

0.99
----

Note that the next version of MAME will be 0.100. If you have code
that
depends on there being only two digits after the decimal, you had
better fix
it before then!


Source Changes
--------------
Fixed 1-bit errors in decryption keys for Crackdown and one of the
D.D. Crew
sets. [Nicola Salmoria, Chris Hardy]

Hooked up NVRAM for World Class Bowling 1.40. [Brian Troha]

Backed out some of the Arm core changes which broke several games.

Fixed the f1superb sound rom loading in ms32.c so that it doesn't
crash.
[David Haywood]

Fixed a graphics glitch in Osman. [David Haywood]

Updated the Taito Z driver: [Nicola Salmoria]
 - fixed road/sprite priority (cars no longer disappear when they go
over a
   hill in Continental Circus)
 - removed bogus contcirc ROM containing 1989 copyright year
 - added PROMs
 - other minor changes

dare2001

[iwillfearnoevil]

not that anyone cares what i think, but i imagine a first year cs major in india could come up with a better numbering system

[elvis]

not that anyone cares what i think, but i imagine a first year cs major in india could come up with a better numbering system

You assume that back in 1996 when the project started there was some forsight that a tiny little one-man emulation project would explode into the world's largest community-driven emulation scene and last almost 10 years to drive it into needing a triple digit numbering scheme.

Think about how long the project lasted, how many people have contributed to it, and how much it's changed in the time it's been around before making throw-away one liners like that.

And for the record, phone tech support aren't CS professionals.  Not to mention the fact that Indian CS majors are no better or worse in skill level than US or European CS majors, so watch your racism levels. 

[deadmoney5]

actually I think Indian CS majors blow us lazy Americans out of the water..

[iwillfearnoevil]

i did mean computer science degree. i said indian because i can't imagine anyone still taking cs classes in America not because of any racist slant!

[Buddabing]

not that anyone cares what i think, but i imagine a first year cs major in india could come up with a better numbering system

The period is not a decimal point. It is a separator. IP addresses use periods as separators, too. I don't see why so many people have difficulty with this.

[Howard_Casto]

I care.....

[Howard_Casto]

not that anyone cares what i think, but i imagine a first year cs major in india could come up with a better numbering system

The period is not a decimal point. It is a separator. IP addresses use periods as separators, too. I don't see why so many people have difficulty with this.

Nope... it's not. The "seperator" as you put it isn't seperating anything as the number on the left has always been 0.  If it were to roll over to 1.0 then it woudl indeed be a seperator and thus make sense. 

But of course, then it would also be a decimal point. 

My point,  the only version numbering systems that actually do use the decimal point as a mere seperator are linux builds, and nobody not even linux users can glance at a linux version build and not get confused enough to give it some thought before downloading.  In other words, using decimal numbers are better for the developer and user alike as it's quick to identify a new version. 

[u_rebelscum]

I care.....  the numbering system is dumb to say the least. (I could use other words, but they'd be censored.)

I currently have a feature in dk to automatically put the newest games in a list if the user so chooses.  ... it's a simple numeric compare  (.99 is greater than .98 so .99 is the latest version and all games between .98 and .99 should be added to the list, that sort of thing.) but now this throws that all out of the water.  .1 is less than .99  that's just dumb....

Umm, what happens with the already released 0.9, 0.10, 0.89, 0.90 versions, howard?  If your code works with 0.9 before 0.10, which is before 0.89 and 0.90, you're already not treating it as a decimal number.  If your code doesn't correctly place 0.9, you have a problem even before 0.100 comes out.  (not that anyone still uses 0.9, but you still have a "Y2K-like" bug.)

I present to you a simple numbering scheme, can't get any simpler.

First version is 1.0

Any betas/ unofficial builds between that and the next official version are 1+ a part of a number. 

(1.1, 1.2, 1.5 ...ect)

The next official version is 2.0

How hard is that?

Please note that every mame since 0.36final has been a beta version.  EVERY SINGLE ONE.

So even with howards' easy numbering the current 0.99 would be 1.63 (assuming 0.36 was renumber'ed 1.0 since it was the last non-beta, and ignoring the 'u's; I've lost count of the # of 'u's, but I bet we'd be close to 1.100 if you included them).  I know you said "official release", but you also said "betas/ unofficial builds"; since every release now is an offical beta release, they could go on either side of your "decimal point"; I'm just putting them on the right side.

The period is not a decimal point. It is a separator. IP addresses use periods as separators, too. I don't see why so many people have difficulty with this.

Nope... it's not. The "seperator" as you put it isn't seperating anything as the number on the left has always been 0.  If it were to roll over to 1.0 then it woudl indeed be a seperator and thus make sense.

But of course, then it would also be a decimal point.

You're mixing arguements.  The three dots in IP addresses are seperators, and they don't "roll over" in the normal sense, and they are not decimal points.  They do roll over at 256, but you still wouldn't call them 256mal points. 

And why do you feel that it has to "roll over" for the dot to be a seperator?   Nobody rolled over that bob-wire fence, but it's still a seperator.  Heck, it's a better seperator because of the fact that nothing went over.

Just because mame never got a 1.# version doesn't change that the zero is being seperated from the numbers after the dot.

And it would only be a true decimal point if the first mame was 0.01, and it rolled over after 0.99. 

Even if mame ever gets to 1.0, that dot is still not a true decimal point, but only a seperator.  People could think of the dot as a decimal point, but it still wouldn't be.


FWIW, I think mame should drop the u and replace it with an other dot.  0.98, 0.98.1, 0.98.2, 0.99, etc.  This is almost like Howard's, except it matches well with the current numbering, and the "." are treated as dots, not decimal points.

That or drop the dot and replace it with a 'b' just to eff with people: 0b98, 0b98u1, 0b98u2, 0b99. 

[SirPoonga]

FWIW, I think mame should drop the u and replace it with an other dot.  0.98, 0.98.1, 0.98.2, 0.99, etc.  This is almost like Howard's, except it matches well with the current numbering, and the "." are treated as dots, not decimal points.

Heh, like controls.dat.
Current build is 0.98.1 (working on 0.99.1 as we speak...)
The first part really means just what mame version I used to populate my master table (directly from listxml).  The last number is the build number under that information.

Remember when mame was like 0.37b7.  If controls.dat was around then it would have been 0.37b7.1, 0.37b7.2, etc...

[elvis]

HAHAHA!  All this aruguing over a numbering system!  Funny stuff!   

I use MAME.  I play MAME.  I'm happy with MAME.  What number the latest version is doesn't change how much fun playing games is.

Less senseless whining, more gaming!!!

[ddockery]

actually I think Indian CS majors blow us lazy Americans out of the water..

Indian CS majors are like everyone else.  Some have awesome coding skills and a great work ethic, some try hard but just don't "get it", and others are lazy ---uvulas--- - just like the US.  I'm so tired of the "lazy American" thing I could puke  People are lazy ---uvulas--- just about everywhere when given the opportunity.

[Mike]

It's not that big of deal.

NewVersionNum = VersionNum * (10 ^ len(VersionNum))

problem solved.

[mahuti]

"given the opportunity"

Well... America IS the land of "opportunity"

[Havok]

Whole new concept: let's give mame "codenames" We could take the current list of available games that are working, and call each new version the next newer game. Start with the APB build, then the AfterBurner build, then the Battlezone build, etc.

Then, If version = "x" launch\do whatever...

[deadmoney5]

actually I think Indian CS majors blow us lazy Americans out of the water..

Indian CS majors are like everyone else.

[Howard_Casto]

responding to rebel.... huh??

I never sugested changing the format... I suggested NOT changing the format.  The fact that they'll deny us a 1.0 DOES change the format.  I was complaining that they already changed the format once, and as far as I can tell, it had no positive impact on organization or comprehension and mererly forced all apps to upgrade their code or immediately become obsolete.  By changing the format yet again, they will complete the same problem all over again.

My point, which you seemed to miss, was that you would have thought that last time they changed the format they would have fixed it the right way.  Afterall, everybody had to change their code regardless of what the change was. 

I'm not sure where two digits vs three comes into it either.  Mind you I'm not the best porgrammer in the world or anything but I treat version numbers as numbers, not strings.  I don't parse for two characters, it's bad coding practice.  I parse for numeric data.  Right now I remove any "u" or "b" characters in the number and compare numerically.  That's the proper way to do it but now I can't.  A minor inconvenience for me yes, but I look at the bigger picture.  This is gonna totally throw companion apps out of whack for a few weeks to a few months, and we might loose some of the more sparsely maintained ones, which is a real shame. 

and no mike it isn't that simple....

Abandoned and inactive projects that depend on the current  numbering system don't magically fix themselves.  I've went over that part already.

[AllisterFiend]

actually I think Indian CS majors blow us lazy Americans out of the water..

Indian CS majors are like everyone else.  Some have awesome coding skills and a great work ethic, some try hard but just don't "get it", and others are lazy ---uvulas--- - just like the US.  I'm so tired of the "lazy American" thing I could puke  People are lazy ---uvulas--- just about everywhere when given the opportunity.

Exactly....so why does the original poster have to use a race at all?  Why not just say, "Even a first year CS major could come up with a better numbering system"?

by the way, it is my opinion that most Indian transfer students work harder than most American college students...How can my opinion be wrong?

Opinions are great, but they are just that, opinions, just because you have one and it involves another race does not make you a racist, the word racist gets thrown around so much lately whenever someone does not like what you say about another race they throw in the racism word to shut you up.  By your definition of racism, you would be a racist toward your own race by calling Americans names.  My point is you might not agree with the previous posters comments but that does not make him a racist, and besides I thought he explained himself pretty good.

(btw, I agree with your  OPINION about American college students, but as for America as a whole, we are still one of the most productive people in the world, even though we get called lazy all them time.)

Sorry to bother everyone, I tried to ignore the racism charge but it kept coming up in this thread.

Allister Fiend

[u_rebelscum]

responding to rebel.... huh??

I never sugested changing the format... I suggested NOT changing the format.  The fact that they'll deny us a 1.0 DOES change the format.  I was complaining that they already changed the format once, and as far as I can tell, it had no positive impact on organization or comprehension and mererly forced all apps to upgrade their code or immediately become obsolete.  By changing the format yet again, they will complete the same problem all over again.

My point, which you seemed to miss, was that you would have thought that last time they changed the format they would have fixed it the right way.  After all, everybody had to change their code regardless of what the change was. 

I'm not sure where two digits vs three comes into it either.  Mind you I'm not the best programmer in the world or anything but I treat version numbers as numbers, not strings.  I don't parse for two characters, it's bad coding practice.  I parse for numeric data.  Right now I remove any "u" or "b" characters in the number and compare numerically.  That's the proper way to do it but now I can't.  A minor inconvenience for me yes, but I look at the bigger picture.  This is gonna totally throw companion apps out of whack for a few weeks to a few months, and we might loose some of the more sparsely maintained ones, which is a real shame. 

Howard, they are not changing format; they are sticking to the basic form: 0.1 => 0.2 ... 0.9 => 0.10 => 0.11 ... 0.99 => 0.100.

Since you are treating the versioning incorrectly, it looks to you like they are changing; they are not. 

You should be treating the dot as a seperator, not a decimal point.  Parse the number before the dot (in this case zero, but if/when it increases, you'll be ready ).  Then parse the number after the dot (but before any 'u' or 'b' or whatever) as a whole integer, be it one or nine or ten or ninety-nine or one hundred (not one tenth, etc).  It doesn't matter how many digits at all.  This is why the dot is a seperator, not a decimal point.

I can see you thinking that you changing your "decimal" view to the official way of treating the versioning looks like a change, but it's you changing, not mame.  MameDev have been saying "the period is not a decimal point" for a long time (before 0.37b13 when I started), and like the "Y2K bug" programmers should have seen it coming and adjusted long before now.  (And like Y2K, many didn't.)  IIRC I "adjusted" somewhere in the 0.5x's, but I don't write anything that needs to parse the version, so it was easy for me. 

FWIW, even though almost all software don't face a x.99 => x.100 version problem, it's much more common for x.9 => x.10 to happen, and it's usually taken without problems because any parsers are parsing as I discribed above.  (For example, CVS is at 1.12.12 right now, with two places it went from .9 to .10, not 0.09 to 0.10)

[Thenasty]

can't wait for MAme version

0.99999999999999
                                    or is it gonna be
0.999999999999999
                                    or is it gonna be
0.9999999999999999
                                     or is it gonna be
0.99999999999999999

damm...whatever, I don't think I'll ever see 1.0 

[elvis]

damm...whatever, I don't think I'll ever see 1.0 

Does it matter?  Does a 1.0 release make your favourite games more fun to play?

They should change the numbering scheme to hex or oct.  All this decimal business seems to have people foaming at the mouth.  It's Y2K all over again.

And technically speaking, a 1.0 release should be when all games ever made are emulated 100% accurately, as per the goals of MAME.  When do you think that task will be completed?

[Howard_Casto]

responding to rebel.... huh??

I never sugested changing the format... I suggested NOT changing the format.

[iwillfearnoevil]

talk about fuzzy math ... we need an algore to stick the old risky numbering scheme in a lockbox.

[deadmoney5]

actually I think Indian CS majors blow us lazy Americans out of the water..

Indian CS majors are like everyone else.

[RayB]

Look, the way I've heard it, the mame devs knew all along that this is a project that will never be "finished", therefore it will never reach 1.0 status, so yes the number is a decimal, but for convenience, you should treat it as a seperator.

Honestly, it isn't very hard to process the number. Just convert it to a string, strip away the "0.", then convert it to an integer and you will be able to detect the version as "100".

[Lilwolf]

Howard it is a standard used in unix versioning.

But I think its a little silly too.  But I go with removing the "0." and just go with 100 myself. 

But they did have a release .9 then it went to .10  That itself was also a mistake in your book.  Sure I didn't start using mame until around .26, but you can still find the old versions.

[RayB]

But they did have a release .9 then it went to .10

[SirPoonga]

0.99
----

Note that the next version of MAME will be 0.100. If you have code
that
depends on there being only two digits after the decimal, you had
better fix
it before then!

If you coded like that you can't handle certain mame version.  I would say you need to handle everything from .36 and on.  That's when win32 started to be the main version and dos started being number 2 priority.

Go through this list
http://www.mame.net/oldmame.html

A really early version is 0.215
Then what about 0.37b11 thorugh 0.37b16


Out of curiousity hw do people use the mame version?  With catlist and filter roms by version introduced, which is only helpful to people that want to figure out the earliest version of mame to use.  That's not going to work with the many naming conventions mame has had.  If you need to sort by an order you need to make some sort of table, array, whatever that puts the version numbers in order.  Otherwise they need to be treated as a label, not a number.

[Howard_Casto]

Lilwolf, you and RayB are missing my point. 


The point isn't how easy it is to fix (it kinda is) or that it was screwed up in the past.  Teh point is they already had a go at "fixing" the version numbering once before and merely broke everything. 

They are about to do it again. 


Just leave well enough alone and let the version roll over naturally. 


And yes I'm aware of the unix numbering convention, but without fear of insulting anyone, unix users and programmers are hopelessly stuck in "engineer" mode and are incapable of making anything user friendly.   Remeber, unix is used by hardcore network engineers and thus the general public never has to deal with the numbering systems. 


Anyway, my complaining isn't going to get it fixed.  So I'm done. 

[Silverwind]

I don't have a big problem with it.. but I don't like the u revisions either...

[u_rebelscum]

The point isn't how easy it is to fix (it kinda is) or that it was screwed up in the past.  The point is they already had a go at "fixing" the version numbering once before and merely broke everything. 

They are about to do it again. 

"They"

Are you aware the version numbering was decided by one person? (Haze)  And only as a small "fix" to the confusion between the 'b' in the abc... instead-of-numbers style (which was also decided upon by Haze in the first place) vs the b in the binary download file name?  You make it sound like a committee decided on this, after months of research and discussions.

edit: rephrased sentence as say what I meant as noted by Haze

Just leave well enough alone and let the version roll over naturally.

It's "natural" only in the decimal-only world.  If you would stop "thinking inside the [decimal] box", it's "natural" not to roll over just because of a certain number is past.

Does the zero mean anything?, and is that something needed?

Aaron and I (not that my opinion makes a difference to mame, and I'm quessing on Aaron's part  ) feel the zero means something in the order of "still in fluid development; beta level software", and is important to keep.  IMO, if the 0. is dropped, "beta" needs to be added to the version name.  It might be even better to have "beta" spelled out for the newbies to mame to understand easier than "0." but ... [shrug].  IMO, there should be a difference between '0.#' and '1.#' mames, and a '1.' in mame should mean something in the order of: "stable core" or "slower developement than before".  Yes, in a decimal-only world, '0' and '1' are just another number, but in software in general, and mame in specific, there is more meaning behind the number before the dot.


While on the subject, Is there a difference between the 'u#' and the official versions?  Yes.  The official release includes a precompiled binary at mame.net, and the full source at both mame.net and mamedev.net.  The interm 'u#' releases only get a source diff file at mamedev.net, and nothing to download from mame.net.  These differences are because of the popularity of mame, and the large bandwidth that would result if the 'u's were full releases.  Should this difference be part of the version number?  IMO, yes.  How should it be noted?  IMO, 'u' is the same area as 'b', which would be equally served with another dot, but otherwise fine with it.

To paraphase someone, "Just leave well enough alone and let the minor version number increase."

[Haze]

Are you aware the version numbering was decided by one person? (Haze)  And only as a small "fix" to the confusion between the 'b' in the abc... style (instead of numbers) vs the b in the binary download file name, which was also decided upon by Haze in the first place?  You make it sound like a committee decided on this, after months of research and discussions.

I'll have to correct you here.  I didn't decide on the 'b' for binary downloads.  That was established long ago.

The initial 'u' updates I did were a,b,c  but as you pointed out that didn't work too well because it created confusion with the binary releases and old 'beta' releases so 'u' was chosen instead for 'update'

as for 0.100, who cares?  If I was putting out the releases it would have been 1.00, but Aaron is putting out the releases and he has decided on 0.100.  Please, the content is more important than the version numbering.  It will come, it will pass, nobody will care after a month.  Y2k all over again.

[pointdablame]

 Please, the content is more important than the version numbering.

Thank goodness... I'm so glad you said that.  I mean, its fun to talk about and play "what if" for a few moments, but really... this is not a cataclysmic change people.  It's just the next version of our favorite emulator.  Frontends will make any changes necessary, people will get used to .103 or .119 or whatever.  The planets will not collide, and the emulation world will not cease to exist

This thread has been interesting to read, but really... "who cares?" is what I always come back to.  It's really not that big of a deal, let's just go play some games and appreciate what all the devs do.

[youki]

Totally agree! 

As coder we have just to adapt at what we have. It is our job! And , i would say , it is the fun of our job!  If it was too easy , it wouldn't be so interresting! 

[elvis]

Y2k all over again.

Yup.  People assume just because human beings settled on a decimal numbering system that appealed to the lowest common denomintor of general the public that somehow "00" milestones have some great importance.

Again I say: change the numbering system to something obscure and keep everyone guessing.

And all this arguing about numbering systems from a bunch of people who still insist on using the archaic imperial measurement system too.  Heh. 

</troll>

[AllisterFiend]

actually I think Indian CS majors blow us lazy Americans out of the water..

Indian CS majors are like everyone else.  Some have awesome coding skills and a great work ethic, some try hard but just don't "get it", and others are lazy ---uvulas--- - just like the US.  I'm so tired of the "lazy American" thing I could puke  People are lazy ---uvulas--- just about everywhere when given the opportunity.

Exactly....so why does the original poster have to use a race at all?  Why not just say, "Even a first year CS major could come up with a better numbering system"?

by the way, it is my opinion that most Indian transfer students work harder than most American college students...How can my opinion be wrong?

Opinions are great, but they are just that, opinions, just because you have one and it involves another race does not make you a racist, the word racist gets thrown around so much lately whenever someone does not like what you say about another race they throw in the racism word to shut you up.  By your definition of racism, you would be a racist toward your own race by calling Americans names.  My point is you might not agree with the previous posters comments but that does not make him a racist, and besides I thought he explained himself pretty good.

(btw, I agree with your  OPINION about American college students, but as for America as a whole, we are still one of the most productive people in the world, even though we get called lazy all them time.)

Sorry to bother everyone, I tried to ignore the racism charge but it kept coming up in this thread.

Allister Fiend

Whoa there, Cowboy...

I never called anybody a racist...

SORRY DeadMonkey5,

   I just re-read the post and I should have directed that toward Elvis...but now that I've read the thread again I see that he did not actually call Jened a racist but was going in that direction.  Anyway, thats what I get for reading a thread early in the morning.

  Allister Fiend

[DarkKobold]

Howard: Aren't you a dev? Don't you have a say in this? Just curious.

Seems like going to 1.00 - 1.01 - 1.02, etc would be easier.

[u_rebelscum]

Are you aware the version numbering was decided by one person? (Haze)  And only as a small "fix" to the confusion between the 'b' in the abc... style (instead of numbers) vs the b in the binary download file name, which was also decided upon by Haze in the first place?

I'll have to correct you here.  I didn't decide on the 'b' for binary downloads.  That was established long ago.

The initial 'u' updates I did were a,b,c  but as you pointed out that didn't work too well because it created confusion with the binary releases and old 'beta' releases so 'u' was chosen instead for 'update'

Yah, that's what I meant.

Should have wrote:
"And only as a small "fix" to the confusion between the 'b' in the abc... instead-of-numbers style (which was also decided upon by Haze in the first place) vs the b in the binary download file name?"

[RayB]

Howard, I understand your point.