When I encounter a version number I mostly want to know either:

  - what are the major characteristics of the program
  - how old is the program

E.g. just this article title on HN: "Java 27: What's New?" doesn't tell you whether Java 27 is old or new. "Java 26.1: What's New?" would.

> doesn't tell you whether Java 27 is old or new. "Java 26.1: What's New?" would

How does 26.1 tell you that? Because you "assume" it is a date? It also still doesn't? How do you know the new 1 isn't 26.100?

> Traditional software versioning helps in the first case: they bump version after a big event

They pretend to. It's given most developers headaches in terms of you have to have something to bump the version so either they make something up or never do it and so fails your test either way.

At the end of the day either:

You care: a quick check won't hurt. It's twice a year.

You don't care: what difference does it make?