[development] version = "$Name$" considered harmful in .info files

[Derek Wright]

Hello world,

It was easy to miss this in my last message[1] to the "Announcing  
cvs_deploy.module" thread, so I'm starting a new one...

The only reason we ever recommended people add:

version = "$Name$"

to the .info files they checked into CVS was for the convenience of  
the power-users who deploy from CVS.  These people should just use  
the new cvs_deploy.module[2] instead.

This line has caused lots of trouble and confusion for lots of  
people.  I'm sorry I ever suggested it, and wish I had just written  
and released the cvs_deploy.module right when we were adding the  
version information to the modules page in D5.  Oh well, live and  
learn...

I've edited the 4.7.x -> 5.x upgrade docs[3] and the handbook page  
about writing .info files[4] to reflect the new best practice:

> version (Optional)
> The version string will ordinarily be added by drupal.org when a  
> release is created and a tarball packaged. However, if your module  
> is not being hosted on the drupal.org infrastructure, you can give  
> your module whatever version string makes sense.
> Users getting their modules directly from CVS will not have a  
> version string, since the .info files checked into CVS do not  
> define a version. These users are encouraged to use the CVS deploy 
> [2] module to provide accurate version strings for the admin/build/ 
> modules page for modules in directories checked out directly from CVS.
>
> In the past (before the CVS deploy module existed), it was  
> recommended to use this:
>
> version = "$Name$"
> However, this led to much confusion and is no longer recommended.  
> If you are a module developer, and you already have the above line  
> in your .info files checked into the Drupal CVS repository, you  
> should remove that line.
Please let me know if you have any questions or complaints.

Thanks,
-Derek (dww)

[1] http://lists.drupal.org/pipermail/development/2007-June/024698.html
[2] http://drupal.org/project/cvs_deploy
[3] http://drupal.org/node/64279
[4] http://drupal.org/node/101009