[vtkusers] [vtk-developers] Discussion: OK to change VTK's version number from 9.0 to 8.2?

[Ben Boeckel]

On Thu, Sep 27, 2018 at 20:44:22 -0700, Bill Lorensen wrote:
> I mean a # that increments nightly. Resets to 0 when a the revision
> number changes.
> 
> Major.Minor.Patch.Build
> 
> Right now if a new class is added you there is no way to know from the
> version when it was added.
> 
> I think we used to do this in vtk...

CMake does this, but it is not just a number that resets to 0, but a
datestamp:

    https://gitlab.kitware.com/cmake/cmake/commit/8bb0e09e38d3ab75198b1cd9746bfa7a7b80ff94

It is used *as* the patch number, not a fourth component. This means
that as soon as we branch and make M.N.0, `master` is already
M.N.2018MMDD and "bigger".

--Ben