Semver Is Wrong For Web Applications

Semantic Versioning (“Semver”) is a great idea, not least -because it's more of a codification of existing practice than a totally novel -approach to versioning. However, I think it's wrong for web applications.

Modern web applications tend to be either totally stagnant - in which case -versioning is irrelevant - or continuously upgraded. Users have no, or very -little, choice as to which version to run: either they run the version currently -on the site, or no version at all. Without the flexibility to choose to run a -specific version, Semver's categorization of versions by what compatibility -guarantees they offer is at best misleading and at worst irrelevant and -insulting.

Web applications must still be versioned; internal users and operators must be -able to trace behavioural changes through to deployments and backwards from -there to code changes. The continuous and incremental nature -of most web development suggests that a simple, ordered version identifier may -be more appropriate: a build serial number, or a version date, or -otherwise.

There are parts of web applications that should be semantically versioned: as -the Semver spec says, “Once you identify your public API, you communicate -changes to it with specific increments to your version number,” and this remains -true on the web: whether you choose to support multiple API versions -simultaneously, or to discard all but the latest API version, a semantic version -number can be a helpful communication tool about that API.

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