this post was submitted on 01 Oct 2026
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Chrome bumped its versioning numbers to overtake Firefox back in the day, that’s how we ended up with stupid version numbers like 124.1.2 instead of meaningful versions.
I've started using CalVer (so a relase in October 2026 would be numbered 26.10). This is just so much better for end-user applications.
What's the benefits here? Why is the semver even bad to begin with? I'm not sure why I'd care that it's in the hundreds. It's a number, right?
Dates - I can just look at the release date if I want that.
SemVer isn't bad, but it's kind of pointless in the browsers. The value in SemVer is if you realistically promise to take bumping that first number seriously. Implying you take backwards compatibility seriously, and bugfixes seriously enough to keep patching an 'old' version. If you just maniacally bump the 'backwards incompatible change' number and never bother to revisit old releases, then I don't really care about the SemVer.
Of course, I also don't necessarily care about the CalVer either if there's update notification in play, the browsers will aggressively let you know you need an update. However if update notification isn't working or otherwise isn't in play, then CalVer can at least make you think "24.7... that seems like it might be old, maybe I should look for updates". In Windows world the CalVer has been informative as the system or corporate IT screw up has frozen a device at 22H2 and trigger some manual effort to figure out/fix whyever the hell the system won't go to new functional levels.