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[GH-ISSUE #471] Who create the first version-specification in the world ? #6335
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Originally created by @smalltask on GitHub (Oct 21, 2018).
Original GitHub issue: https://github.com/semver/semver/issues/471
Who create the first version-specification in the world ?
This story might be very interesting :)
@jwdonahue commented on GitHub (Oct 23, 2018):
In order of least likely to discover physical evidence:
The story begins in ancient times when architects/engineers designed stadiums, cathedrals, via-ducts, and the like, that took decades or generations of artisans to complete. Plans were often changed on time-scales of years to decades. Was there a written spec for versioning such plans as those used to build the great pyramids? Did they bother with any kind of revision info other than the newer plans were less decayed than the older plans?
I know there were informal conventions to encode some form of provenance, used by scribes in ancient times, who copied or translated certain classes of documents. There may have been some written edict(s) from a local ruler, high priest or monk, that formalized some early form of version marks. Are there references to revision marks in any ancient Chinese or Greek documents?
Revision marks definitely hit it big, a short time after the Gutenberg Press was invented, but I suspect that the Catholic Church already had some formal requirements for revision marks on copies of important religious texts. If you did some digging around in various museums around the world, you can probably find engineering/architecture drawings that have fairly consistent revision marks on them and then find the engineering/architectural school where the designer got their credentials. There's probably dozens of cases that can be documented, where a professor of science, engineering or architecture wrote a text book that included some recommendations on revision marks that can be traced to that region/epoch's most common practices.
Patent offices go back at least a few hundred years in many countries. Many of those will have written requirements for versioning drawings and other documents used in the patent process. Your job won't be completed until you've performed an exhaustive search through the archives of all the worlds centers of higher learning, because that's where governments have traditionally gone for advice how to setup working patent offices.
Electronics designers/manufactures have been using various revision marks on most of their drawings and circuit boards, since the industry first formed. Software versioning practices eventually evolved within those companies from whatever their EE's were using at the time. Check the archives of Bell Labs, AT&T, RCA, Victor, etc.
Check the IEEE and ACM libaries! ANSI, ISO and IETF probably have plenty potential. I came across an RFC on the topic once, but I can't find it now. This search might be a good place to start.
Good luck with your search. As this issue is not answerable and is unlikely to result in a pull-request, please close this issue at your earliest possible convenience.
@jwdonahue commented on GitHub (Oct 23, 2018):
I forgot to mention legislatures! Various law making bodies have traditionally had some well defined revision markings. Those could date back hundreds of years.
@smalltask commented on GitHub (Oct 26, 2018):
Thank you very much！