What is Version Control and Releases?
Version control is a system that helps track changes to code over time, allowing for collaboration and easy rollback to previous versions. It acts like a time machine for your codebase, letting you revisit any point in its history.
Releases, on the other hand, mark specific points in time when a set of changes is packaged and made available to users. They often come with release notes detailing the changes, bug fixes, and improvements included.
Why is Version Control and Releases important?
Version control and releases are crucial for several reasons:
- Collaboration: Multiple developers can work on the same codebase without stepping on each other’s toes.
- History: You can easily see what changes were made, who made them, and why. This is invaluable for debugging and understanding the evolution of the codebase.
- Rollbacks: If a change introduces a bug, you can easily revert to a previous working version.
- Releases: Releases allow you to distribute new features and bug fixes to users in a controlled manner.
- Documentation: Release notes provide a clear record of changes, making it easier for users to understand what’s new and for developers to track their work.
Versioning Strategy
The distribution
project follows a semantic versioning strategy, as defined by Semantic Versioning 2.0.0. This means that version numbers are structured as MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH
:
- MAJOR: Incremented when there are incompatible API changes.
- MINOR: Incremented when new features are added that are backwards compatible.
- PATCH: Incremented when backwards compatible bug fixes are made.
Release Notes
Each release of distribution
includes release notes detailing the changes, bug fixes, and new features. These notes are available on the GitHub releases page.
How to Contribute
If you’d like to contribute to the distribution
project, please refer to the contributing guidelines.
Top-Level Directory Explanations
version/ - This directory is related to the version handling functionality of the distribution project, which includes various Go files for version-related tasks.