major.minor.build.revision versioning style vs year.month.day.whatever versioning style

Question

Is there any reason to use one versioning style over the other for .NET assemblies????

I'd like to know if there are any advantages/disadvantages in using either style besides taste.

Answer 1

The advantage of time is that you get both an increasing version number and encode the timestamp.

The advantage of using more traditional numbers is that it's easier for people to understand. We all know roughly what "v2.1" means, for example.

In general I suggest using time because the added information is useful. The advantage of the other numbers is for marketing only, and for that you can do it anyway.

For example, why not have both, a la "v2.1.20090214." Now you have marketing in the major.minor section and utility in the "build" section.