Publishing prereleases – Suggest -wip for naming convention during development

[kevmoo]

Page URL: https://dart.dev/tools/pub/publishing#publishing-prereleases
Page source: https://github.com/dart-lang/site-www/tree/master/src/tools/pub/publishing.md

We tend to use -dev as a suffix for packages during development – only changing it before we publish. This makes it easy for someone looking at the source to understand the state of the package. See https://github.com/dart-lang/sdk/wiki/External-Package-Maintenance

First, should be generalize this convention?

If yes, we should update this page. Use -alpha or -beta

If yes, we may also want to go as far as adding a warning (or error) to the pub client.

CC @mit-mit @jakemac53 @natebosch @kwalrath

[mit-mit]

I'm confused, because we have an internal team practice on a few packages, we now want to change our external guidance for how our customers should do it?

I like the current guidance; using -dev is aligned with the version numbers we use for the core SDK: https://dart.dev/get-dart#release-channels

Wouldn't it be simpler to change our internal practice to use something like -unpublished?

[jakemac53]

I don't think we need to be overly prescriptive here, I would definitely not add a warning or error to pub.

Given that we are going to start publishing pre-release versions then I agree with @mit-mit that we should reconsider how we are managing the "in progress" versions as the current -dev strategy would become confusing I think.

[kevmoo]

I'm fine going either way – just pushing for consistency here.

A lot of folks follow along w/ our repos and assume we're always using best practices.

[kevmoo]

Didn't mean to close!

[atsansone]

@mit-mit , @kevmoo , @jakemac53 : Is this still a going concern? If so, do you have any updates?

[natebosch]

I agree with @mit-mit that we should reconsider how we are managing the "in progress" versions as the current -dev strategy would become confusing I think.

WDYT about -wip to replace our current non-publishing usage of -dev?

[mit-mit]

-wip sgmt. one other idea is -next

[kevmoo]

CC @devoncarew – would be good to get this into our tooling if this is our new protocol.

[kevmoo]

I like -wip

[jakemac53]

No opinion here, happy to use whatever suffix.

[parlough]

Sounds like there has been consensus on using -wip as a bunch of Dart team projects have migrated to doing so.

Unless someone chimes in, the task here is now:

• Update docs to suggest -wip as suffix for in-progress work and -dev for prereleases

Thanks all!