I'm just getting familiar with Parallels, only bought it a few days ago, so I'm not sure what the build numbers mean. Have there been 1,150 builds since the last official release, or are the number tied to the date?
Most software companies, probably including Parallels, use a central code repository where developers put their changes when they finish working on a module. Every so often, usually once a day or more, the product is rebuilt from the repository with all the latest changes so the developers can continue working with the latest version of the product. The build number is incremented when this is done, and is independent of the product version number. In every case, I'm sure including Parallels, the build number is a unique monotonically increasing identifier of a specific version of the product. Not all builds are made available outside the development team's area. The bottom line is that the build number uniquely identifies a version of the product, and larger numbers indicate later versions. The number will increase with time even if the change is to remove something.
Thanks for the explanation, much of which is easy to understand. I'm impressed that they've done 1,150 builds since November 1st 2006!
Usually, and most probably in Parallels' case, build 1 is the first build of the product, and the build number is never reset even though the version number increases with each release. So the build number would be builds since the product was first coded, which would be way earlier than November 06.
The figure I gave of 1,150 builds was the difference between the build 1,970 of November 1st 2006, and build 3,120, the current beta. I realize that the 3,120 builds would include ones before November. 1,150 builds since November is very impressive.
It's common practice to increment build numbers by large amounts when starting a version with as many new features as 2.5 has compared to 2.2. It's quite possible that 2.5 started at build 2800, for example.
What's the timing on the next update to Build 1970? I assume that Build 1970 is the current "retail" version and that Parallels Desktop for Mac Release Candidate 2 (Build 3150) is still in Beta. I've been waiting since MacWorld SF for the consumer release that includes Coherence, USB 2.0 etc, etc.
Yes, that's correct. As far as I know Parallels has not released any specific information about when that GA or consumer release will happen, but they are currently "hard at work" on it. I suspect that there will be some announcement presently.
There is a major release rumoured for next week, any ideas whether this will include 3D acceleration?
