The Micro Version Number

Software releases have version numbers.

It’s how we know, both internally and externally, what this thing is that we just unleashed. “We” is many different people:

• The customer-facing people. The version number serves as a marketing communication tool. “This version has these features and improvements that you care about.”
• The software engineering people. The version number serves as both a specific indicator of what code is included (and, by extension, excluded) and, if there’s a bug (there’s always a bug), where to start so they can fix it.
• The test people. The version number indicates the actual thing they must test because this is what goes out to the world. We’re not testing some like what we’re delivering. We’re testing the delivery.
• The executive people. The version number serves as a way to discuss, prioritize, and understand the overall progress of the product.

The version number usually looks something like 12.3.14.

We call that last number, 14 in this case, the microversion. Seems small. Seems like no big deal. 14 probably isn’t much different than 13.

Could be true.

But also, it could be thousands of hours of effort.

Sometimes what looks like the smallest of the hurdles turns out to be the biggest of the mountains.