Misc #19613
Updated by fulldecent (William Entriken) about 1 year ago
Ruby does not properly support semantic versioning. [1]
Therefore, for example, the function File#exist? should specify if this function existed since Ruby 2.0.0, Ruby 3.0.0, Ruby 3.2.0 and if, maybe, Ruby 2.9.4.3.az doesn't support it.
In this example, if somebody was using File#exists? and were violated to find their code stopped working with Ruby 3.2.0 they might switch to File#exist?.
However by reading the documentation we don't know if File#exist? was just created in 3.2.0 to replace File#exists? or if it was created in 2.0 or 2.4 or whatever.
Maybe there is some version like 2.9.8 where File#exist? didn't exist. Maybe everybody else reading this (population bias: people that use Redmine) knows this. But if you are just reading the documentation then you won't know this and you will have a painful experience.
Possible solutions:
1. Update https://www.ruby-lang.org/en/news/2013/12/21/ruby-version-policy-changes-with-2-1-0/ and add a red warning at the top: RUBY HAS MADE VIOLATIONS OF SEMANTIC VERSIONING UP TO VERSION 3.2.0 THAT WE WILL NOT CORRECT. BUT STARTING IN 3.2.0 WE HAVE/WILL USE SEMANTIC VERSIONING GOING FORWARD.
2. Update https://www.ruby-lang.org/en/news/2013/12/21/ruby-version-policy-changes-with-2-1-0/ and add a red warning at the top: WE HAVE CHANGED OUR POSITION, AND WE WILL BE "INSPIRED" BY SEMVER BUT MAKE NO COMMITMENT TO USE IT COMPLETELY, WE WILL ABANDON THE WORD "SEMVER" TO AVOID CONFUSION.
3. If #1 is not done: update every function documentation to explain all versions and history notes about what applies to that function (this is what PHP does in their official documetation.)