Consider ^ over ~ for default --save option

[ahumphreys87]

Currently bower install --save uses ~ in the dependency, consider changing to ^ for better semver compatibility?

[ahumphreys87]

npm are implementing this feature by the looks of it: npm/npm#4587

[sindresorhus]

👍

[cobbweb]

👎 While semver seems to be quite popular in NodeJS land, some big browsers libraries don't follow semver. Marionette now defines explicit version ranges for its third-party dependencies. Backbone releases can make your whole app can fallover if you're using ~, using ^ sounds even worse.

If you don't agree with the above, maybe consider that pre v1.0.0 dependencies are free to break BC, so avoiding fuzzy matching on those may be desirable.

[sindresorhus]

If you don't agree with the above, maybe consider that pre v1.0.0 dependencies are free to break BC, so avoiding fuzzy matching on those may be desirable.

Pre 1.0.0 only matches patch version even with ^, so no change there. Please read https://github.com/isaacs/node-semver#ranges

If you use Backbone or Marionette just hardcode the version yourself. Bower doesn't and won't care about libs not following semver.

[cobbweb]

Pre 1.0.0 only matches patch version even with ^, so no change there.

👍

If you use Backbone or Marionette just hardcode the version yourself.

That is the solution, still a bit of a trap for unsuspecting devs though. Marionette follows semver, just Backbone/Underscore don't :(

[sheerun]

I'm only agreeing on this if bower itself will change all ~ to ^ in its package.json

The reality is good part bower component authors don't know what they're doing. You can't expect of them to know what is the difference between ~ and ^. And you can't expect they will be following semver rules (even knowing semver rules it's easy to introduce incompatibility on minor version change).

If you look at npm issue they have problems with it now.

I think this should be closed.

[sheerun]

Especially bower doesn't have lockfile..

[benmann]

I guess this was fixed by: #2145
Correct me if I'm wrong.. 🍰