Re: [h5md-user] Make "time" optional?

[Pierre de Buyl]

On Tue, Jul 15, 2014 at 05:40:15PM +0200, Felix Höfling wrote:
> Am 15.07.2014, 14:33 Uhr, schrieb Pierre de Buyl <address@hidden>:
> >All the points you mentioned (abuse of the format, rule-bending)
> >will cause
> >trouble if not handled properly.
> >
> >This all might lead to H5MD 2.0 arriving sooner than expected but
> >it is much
> >preferable to have that than to have H5MD fade into oblivion!
> >Depending on the
> >backward-compatible character of the changes (as mentioned by
> >Peter) it might be
> >either 1.1 or 2.0. As Peter wrote, nothing to worry about but we
> >should indeed
> >respect the versioning that we've chosen.
> >
> >P
> >
> 
> Concerning the versioning, we need an (internal) definition of what
> "backwards compatiblity" means. As I indicated earlier, I suggest
> something like
> 
> "For y > x, the format version 1.y is backwards compatible to 1.x if a
> reader expecting 1.y can deal with 1.x."
> 
> An old reader expecting 1.x can not handle 1.y, of course. This means that
> 1.y is a superset of 1.x, it may be more relaxed or include additional
> fields.

"""The version x.y.z of the H5MD specification follows semantic versioning
(Preston-Werner): A change of the major version number x indicates
backwards-incompatible changes to the file structure. A change of the minor
version number y indicates backwards-compatible changes to the file 
structure."""

If we make the proposed change, 1.0 readers will not be able to handle 1.1
files. If I understand well, this falls under "backwards-incompatible changes to
the file structure".

P