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piracy · Jul 25, 2002, 01:28 PM

<blockquote>quote:<hr />First you ask me to lock a thread, and then as soon as I do, you continue it?<hr /></blockquote>I didn't ask you to lock the first thread. Yes, I know other people did, but I didn't. And as I started the second thread, and no one asked you to lock that one, I'm not exactly sure why it's locked.

<blockquote>quote:<hr />But neither do I see any point in seeding a build, and then finally releasing that same build four months later without any new seeds in between. What is the point?<hr /></blockquote>I think you might be confusing something here. The Developer RC 4K78 and retail release 4K78 were 2 weeks apart, not 4 months.

<blockquote>quote:<hr />Very likely, they are the same source code, simply compiled with different options<hr /></blockquote>No. That would change the md5sum.

<blockquote>quote:<hr />that change could easily be considered insignificant enough to keep the build number<hr /></blockquote>No, it wouldn't be. That's a HUGE change, and would absolutely merit a change in build number. Even a recompile with NOTHING CHANGED merits a change in build number, that's the whole purpose of them; to uniquely identify the build and all its parameters back to its birth. (Of course, you wouldn't just arbitrarily rebuild for no reason; generating a build is a controlled and time-consuming process.)

<blockquote>quote:<hr />While they may have the same number, there is no way the OSX CD I got on March 24th, 2001 and its four-month-older seed of the same number are the same build.<hr /></blockquote>The developer RC 4K78 went out to all developers the first week of March. So whatever your 4-month older build is, yes, I guess I'd agree: it's not the same as retail, because it's not 4K78. The developer RC 4K78 and retail 4K78 were two weeks apart, and identical.

Nice way to close the thread stating the "4 month" thing as if it was fact, too, by the way. Where did you get that from?

Note: I am explicitly asking you to NOT lock this thread.

[ 07-25-2002, 01:34 PM: Message edited by: piracy ]

mudmonkey · Jul 25, 2002, 01:41 PM

It is hilarious how some people think of build numbers as some sort of qualitative definition of what is to come.

Build numbers are NOT (read that again, NOT) assigned by some person arbitrarily.

I won't speak for Apple, but, EVERY major development house has a Configuration Management team for each project (CM for short). When the development team agrees on a new build (or whatever build interval criteria), CM locks the currently checked in code and creates a build. The CM software to do all of this then assigns it a UNIQUE build number. This is strictly controlled and is a minimal requirement of any organization to get certification by a qualitative organization (ISO, etc.).

If there were multiple builds with the same build number, there would be NO way to ever fix problems or ANY accounting.

Do cars come out of the factory with same VIN numbers? Sorry officer, I didn't steal this car, I must have the SAME build number!!?!?!

Anyone who sticks by multiple builds for a single build number has to be the most ignorant of all fools.

EDIT: typo

[ 07-25-2002, 01:45 PM: Message edited by: mudmonkey ]

Millennium · Jul 25, 2002, 01:52 PM

Must I start deleting these threads?

I have received multiple requests to lock this discussion, and that is what I am going to do. If you try to carry it out into further threads, I'll lock them too, per these requests. I'd like to keep discussing this, but I have my orders.