vers.h

Here is the truth about versioning shell helpers: a tiny wrapper that prints versions of the tools you actually use saves more time than it has any right to. When something breaks after an update, “what am I running?” should be a one-liner.

What it is, in plain words

versh on this site is a personal utility idea: a shell script (or alias collection) that reports versions of the compilers, interpreters and services on a machine – the footprint of a development environment. Not a product; a habit.

Why it matters

Bug reports without versions are guesses. Reproducing a build needs the same GCC, the same libc, the same Node. A ver.sh in a repo or ~/bin turns a five-minute archaeology dig into ten seconds.

An everyday analogy: a medical wristband

In a hospital, the wristband lists the facts that change treatment. A version script is the wristband for your toolchain.

A hands-on example

#!/bin/sh
# ~/bin/versh – extend as you like
set -e
section() { printf '\n== %s ==\n' "$1"; }

section "OS"
uname -a
[ -f /etc/os-release ] && . /etc/os-release && echo "$PRETTY_NAME"

section "Toolchains"
command -v gcc >/dev/null && gcc --version | head -1
command -v rustc >/dev/null && rustc --version
command -v go >/dev/null && go version
command -v python3 >/dev/null && python3 --version
command -v node >/dev/null && node --version
command -v pil >/dev/null && pil -version 2>/dev/null || true

section "Userland"
git --version
vim --version | head -1

chmod +x ~/bin/versh
versh > ~/notes/vikix-versions.txt

Pin the same idea in project READMEs: “build tested with …” plus a paste from versh.

Common misconceptions

"--version is enough everywhere." Some tools use -v, version, or print to stderr. The script papers over that.
“Containers make this obsolete.” Images drift; recording what ran still matters.
“Only languages matter.” Shared libraries and package managers break builds too – add ldd --version, xbps-query -v, etc.

Connections

BASH, Linux Introspection, Git.
Build – knowing what Vikix is made of.

static byte Version[4] = {17,6,13};

remember that byte is defined in pico.h line 50 as typedef unsigned char byte;.