Components and Versions

Thought about how to handle component versions

The difference between COMP and PACK

While COMP refers to components as such, does PACK refer to an immutable package of components (PackagedComponent).

The COMP commands start with a main component (the one that listed in the command line), and it works with a the component hierarchy. A component hierarchy (one main component and its dependent children) always references unversioned children because references in general do not include a version. This is always true, no matter if the main component is the current or a specific version.

The PACK command works with a packaged component which lists component incl. their version. There is no child or parent, neither are there referenced components.

Thoughts on COMP

• No matter if RenderCurrent or RenderVersioned, only the main component contains a version.

• Only current components - unversioned children - are referenced.

• Versioned components are only necessary for documentation purpose, in case someone wants to document all versions.

• There is no need to build summaries etc. for versioned components. You must always select a specific versioned component.

• Versioned components stand for themselves - in any case - because they are never referenced.

• Versioned processes build a markdown and UML (with links to their unversioned children).

  • Rendered components (e.g. Markdown or UML) are the same for versioned and current component, if the version = current. There is no need to re-render a version component but to save the rendered content to another file (with a version tag).

• RenderCurrent renders the current component with references to unversioned child components.

• RenderVersioned renders a versioned main component with references to unversioned child components.

• Children must always include deleted components, too, because a non-current, versioned component might reference child components which have been delete

What is built?

• No matter if the main component is specified with or without a version: Metadata, Component (GET Command) and Markdown and UML (DOC Command) are always saved as a file without version tag.

  • All children are also saved without version tags.

• A copy of all files (main and children) are save with a version tag in the version folder (see Application Settings).