Re: NS

[Lloyd Wood <L.Wood@surrey.ac.uk>]

On Thu, 28 Oct 1999, Haobo Yu wrote:

> > > >> How do I know which version of ns I am running 
> > 
> > make a note of what you downloaded and when you downloaded it.
> 
> There's a quite obscure tcl command 'ns-version' which lets you know it
> from your script.

and it lies.

% ns-version
2.1b6

when I'm running a daily snapshot and ns 2.1b6 hasn't actually been
released yet. Ergo, functionality that may be in 2.1b6 and may be
required by the script I write at some future point for widespread
distribution (multicast over integrated satellite nodes, for instance,
which hopefully comes together before 2.1b6) may not actually be
present and working in the version someone has that returns 2.1b6
withc ns-version, therefore testing version is moot.

(The 'but you're supposed to be running a release version' argument is
 counter to the nature of ns, and therefore also moot. Would anyone
 actually running a release version of ns on anything other than
 Windows please raise their hands?)

I suspect the reason the command is obscure is essentially because
it's simply not useful as is.

This command could also return a datestamp or 'release' label; looking
at CVS and changes, it's often far better to require functionality
available after a certain specific date than at the major
granularities of releases - the ongoing nature of ns and few major
releases mean that there's a need for this. And returning a date is
useful for simplifying support.

btw, nomenclature: 2.1b6-prerelease is far clearer than 2.1b6-current;
it indicates you're building to that release, rather than on that
release.

L.

2.1b6 isn't done until it's done.

<L.Wood@surrey.ac.uk>PGP<http://www.ee.surrey.ac.uk/Personal/L.Wood/>