urbit/pub/doc/hoon/library/0.md
2015-08-11 14:32:57 -07:00

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volume 0, Kelvin Versioning.
===========================
### `++hoon`
++ hoon %164 :: version stub
Declares the current Hoon version number in degrees Kelvin.
When normal people release normal software, they count by fractions, and
they count up. Thus, they can keep extending and revising their systems
incrementally. This is generally considered a good thing. It generally
is.
In some cases, however, specifications needs to be permanently frozen.
This requirement is generally found in the context of standards. Some
standards are extensible or versionable, but some are not. ASCII, for
instance, is perma-frozen. So is IPv4 (its relationship to IPv6 is
little more than nominal - if they were really the same protocol, they'd
have the same ethertype). Moreover, many standards render themselves
incompatible in practice through excessive enthusiasm for extensibility.
They may not be perma-frozen, but they probably should be.
The true, Martian way to perma-freeze a system is what I call Kelvin
versioning. In Kelvin versioning, releases count down by integer degrees
Kelvin. At absolute zero, the system can no longer be changed. At 1K,
one more modification is possible. And so on. For instance, Nock is at
5K. It might change, though it probably won't. Nouns themselves are at
0K - it is impossible to imagine changing anything about their three
sentence definition.
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~zod/try=> stub
164
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