"versioning" - Word of the Day from the OED

OED Online Word of the Day

OED Online will relaunch in December 2010. Find out more...

Now Available: How to Read a Word

Noted lexicographer Elizabeth Knowles provides a 'how-to' guide for budding word detectives, showing how to explore the history of words from origin to current usage, identifying both the questions you should ask and how to answer them. Click here for more details.

'An indispensable field guide for all word origin hunters, full of insider's tips and practical advice' John Mitchinson, co-author of QI: The Book of General Ignorance

Now available: the Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary

This new print publication provides a unique resource for scholars researching linguistic and literary history, the history of the language, social history, and more. Read more and see a sample page.

"An indispensable tool for writers." –School Library Journal.

---

versioning, n.

DRAFT ENTRY Dec. 2008

Brit. /v/, /vn/, U.S. /vr()n/  [< VERSION n. + -ING suffix¹. Compare version vb. at VERSION n. Derivatives.] 

    1. The use, creation, or provision of new or different versions of something.

1984 Supermarket News 17 Dec. II. 28/3 Versioning means the advertising that goes into the suburbs will promote the large sizes, and the advertising downtown for the same item will focus on the smaller sizes. 1997 S. BARROW & P. DALTON Reggae ii. 51/2 The practice of ‘versioning’whether in the form of dub or deejayinghad its genesis in this period. 2000 New Yorker 22 May 24/2 Versioning lures thrifty souls while assuring the high-end customers that they're getting more for paying more. But versioning is no radical advance: prices remain fixed; there are just more of them.

    2. Computing. The control, comparison, or management of multiple versions of software or other data.

1984 Proc. 4th Symp. Reliability in Distributed Software & Database Syst. 54 JASMIN..uses a distributed optimistic concurrency control method combined with a versioning scheme. 1994 Managem. Sci. 40 1103/1 Support for versioning and version management have been recognized as important functions in various application domains, such as software engineering. 2002 Computer Weekly 24 Jan. 13/5 The problem of versioning in XML may not be understood for some time because currently most XML projects are small enough to be managed by hand.

To cancel this service, send a message to wotd@oed.com consisting of the text signoff oedwotd-l and leave the subject line blank . Alternatively, use this unsubscribe mail link.

Written requests to unsubscribe may be sent to:

Online Products
Oxford University Press
Great Clarendon Street
Oxford OX2 6DP
UK

Visit the OED's home page at www.oed.com

Copyright © Oxford University Press 2008

Oxford University Press (UK) Disclaimer

This message is confidential. You should not copy it or disclose its contents to anyone. You may use and apply the information for the intended purpose only. OUP does not accept legal responsibility for the contents of this message. Any views or opinions presented are those of the author only and not of OUP. If this email has come to you in error, please delete it, along with any attachments. Please note that OUP may intercept incoming and outgoing email communications.