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What is the difference between the tags and tags? The two tags seem to be very similar to each other.

The tag has about 4,150 questions and the tag has about 2,280 questions — those numbers include 81 questions tagged with both.

My only guess would be that might be about identifying a specific version of a program, where may be about setting the version for a program.

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  • 17
    I think both of those are useless tags.
    – user4639281
    Commented Mar 4, 2017 at 20:19
  • 1
    There's no real need for any of them.
    – Braiam
    Commented Mar 4, 2017 at 22:11
  • 4
    Well, one of them was created after the other one, so it should replace it, right?
    – Nathan Tuggy
    Commented Mar 5, 2017 at 22:52
  • 4
    IMHO version should be used when there are more than one version of the subject (e.g. PHP 4 and PHP 5) and versioning when you are talking about a versioning system (e.g. git, svn etc)
    – k3oy
    Commented Mar 6, 2017 at 3:36
  • Don't we have php4 and php5 tags? They are a lot more specific and actually give us decent scope. I don't see how having a generic version flag gives us any additional information...
    – Shadow
    Commented Mar 7, 2017 at 5:32
  • version is a noun. versioning is a present participle, I think. Hey - I'm a programmer, noy an English major.
    – Magoo
    Commented Mar 7, 2017 at 8:44
  • versioning is the process of versioning. Version might refer to a certain version related problem of any software. I guess it's better to have a single version tag for everything than a version tag for every single tag. That way you can search for [java][version] if you have a version related problem or want to answer question related to that. Otherwise you would have todo [java-version] and hope that the tag exists.
    – HopefullyHelpful
    Commented Mar 7, 2017 at 9:39

1 Answer 1

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is a useless tag that could do with burnination. It could mean anything and I really don't see how it can be used in any meaningful way. The tag wiki suggests that this tag is about version control, but that is not how the tag is used at all. It is rather used as fill-out, trash-tag material. Just take a brief look at this and you get the idea: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/version. Quite horrible...

seems to mean . But since already exists and is a more correct term, could probably do with some burnination too.

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    what about api versioning
    – Daniel A. White
    Commented Mar 6, 2017 at 17:24
  • 1
    @DanielA.White: What about API versioning? If there's a need for a tag about it, it should be api-versioning — a non-existent tag (as I type).
    – Jonathan Leffler
    Commented Mar 7, 2017 at 3:04
  • @DanielA.White what question would deserve such tag? "How to version my api?" The only answer would be "as you wish!".
    – Braiam
    Commented Mar 7, 2017 at 3:24
  • I think this is the problem. The version tag can be used for anything, but is describing a lot. The necessity stems from the problem that low rep users can't create tags, so they use it when they have a version related problem, together with whatever software they are using. I guess it's better to have a single version tag for everything than a version tag for every single tag. That way you can search for [java][version] if you have a version related problem or want to ask/answer questions related to that. Otherwise you would have to use [java-version] and hope that the tag exists/used.
    – HopefullyHelpful
    Commented Mar 7, 2017 at 9:40
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    @HopefullyHelpful Nah it is a nonsense tag and somebody should post a burninate request. Just read through java + version, the search results are completely incoherent.
    – Lundin
    Commented Mar 7, 2017 at 9:46
  • Well, I guess the version is used with the most specific technology. So [android][version] is refering to android version most likely [java][android][version] is refering to java version in an android context. If you would want good [java][version] results for pure java then you would have to remove java from every unrelated question. Burninate will not solve the problem, but make it worse and even more inconsistent, the tag would quickly be recreated I guess, but now be non existant in old questions. Not to mention the hit in searchability and usabilty for new members.
    – HopefullyHelpful
    Commented Mar 7, 2017 at 9:52
  • I guess that version would have to be split into language-version buildsystem-version platform-version etc. to be disambiguous. The alternatives are 1 single version tag or millions of local single use tags.
    – HopefullyHelpful
    Commented Mar 7, 2017 at 10:02
  • Versioning would have to be split into versioning-code-system and versioning-release/user-system or something.
    – HopefullyHelpful
    Commented Mar 7, 2017 at 10:03
  • Meh, we should just stop trying to find something useful on this tag where there's no evidence of otherwise. Sometimes, even if you try to make sense of something it doesn't, because it never made sense.
    – Braiam
    Commented Mar 7, 2017 at 15:34
  • Should I convert this question into a burninate request then? Or would you like to make a separate topic for that.
    – Stevoisiak
    Commented Apr 27, 2017 at 18:04
  • @Braiam I versioned my Minecraft mods once, ended up being a broken system because it didn't actually do what I tried to use it for. Then I tried to re-version with a different system and that failed almost immediately. I think I'm on version 3 of my api versioning system. [meta-versioning]
    – Draco18s no longer trusts SE
    Commented May 17, 2017 at 16:21
  • @Draco18s serious question: which of the tags will put your question in front of the experts that would be to answer your minecraft question, minecraft or version?
    – Braiam
    Commented May 17, 2017 at 16:51
  • @Braiam If I were to use my mods as an example of a problem I had and wanted to get some expert advice on "how to do this better" I would probably tag it....ooh...ah. [api-design] would be perfect. I wanted to version the API in such a way that I could make the dependents rely on a specific version or higher but still make bugfix level changes to the API itself without increment the version number of the dependent. My v1 was just straight numerical. v2 was [release].[internal].[bugfix], but what if I had to bugfix the api? That inc'ed [release] and required a full build.
    – Draco18s no longer trusts SE
    Commented May 17, 2017 at 16:59
  • @Draco18s and here's the thing: nobody follows api-design, because, it doesn't exist as no answerer have felt the need to create a tag for that and even if it did, people would have no idea what the questions would be like. Remember, tags are for concrete stuff. Things that you can say here it ends and here it starts. There's no book about api design which covers all and every question about api design, so what we do is to shove it to another site that deals with software architecture and design and say that we are creating an api.
    – Braiam
    Commented May 17, 2017 at 17:38
  • Which moves us to the next point @Draco18s, your question would be not answered as you selected the tag that didn't put your question in front of experts.
    – Braiam
    Commented May 17, 2017 at 17:39

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