Base version numbers on Python releases?

[msullivan]

Since typed_ast is a fork of asts from specific python versions, I think it would make sense to make the version numbers be tied to the Python release that it was forked from, with a minor version and a patch number appended.

This would make the upcoming release be 3.7.2.0.0 (which by PEP 440 can be abbreviated as 3.7.2).

[gvanrossum]

That's not a bad idea (though I think maybe one .0 is enough?).

[msullivan]

Two allows us to be more like semver, bumping a patch number for bugfixes and a minor version when things might break. Not having that might be fine, though, for something like typed_ast that probably needs to be version pinned pretty carefully?

[gvanrossum]

Hm, now I'm less sure about this. I think I'd rather have 1.3.0, 1.3.1 than 3.7.2.0.0, 3.7.2.0.1. Or even 3.7.2.0, 3.7.2.1. We had to do a brown bag release for typing (which does use this versioning scheme) and it was pretty ugly.

[gvanrossum]

Let's not. We'll probably never have a new version of typed_ast based on Python 3.8 (instead, Python 3.8's ast module supports type comments, and mypy works with this).