Naming scheme is confusing & brittle #1
Description
The Engram family of keyboard layouts now consists of:
- Engram-en (last changed 2025-10-25), the latest English layout
- currently unversioned
- generated by optimize_layouts at or before commit
46dd64b8b7e4674577675c83f06aaff99bff87c0(2025-10-21)
- Engram-es (last changed 2025-10-25), the latest Spanish layout
- currently unversioned
- generated by optimize_layouts at or before commit
46dd64b8b7e4674577675c83f06aaff99bff87c0(2025-10-21)
- Engram-2021 (released 2021-12-18) (last changed 2021-05-05), the English layout before Engram-en (last changed 2025-10-25)
- renamed from Engram v2.0 (“Engram”) on 2025-10-25, after the initial publication of Engram-en (last changed 2025-10-25)
- Engram-es-2021 (released 2021-09-30) (last changed 2021-08-23), the Spanish layout before Engram-es (last changed 2025-10-25)
- renamed from Engram-es v1.0 on 2025-10-25, after the initial publication of Engram-es (last changed 2025-10-25)
- Engram v1.3 (released 2021-03-20), the English layout before Engram-2021 (released 2021-12-18)
- Engram v1.2 (last changed 2021-02-08), the English layout before Engram v1.3 (released 2021-03-20)
- lacks a Git tag
I can understand the desire to rename the previous “generation” of Engram layouts to “Engram-2021”. However, I don't understand why that wouldn't be paired with naming the new generation of Engram layouts “Engram-2025”, which would give us Engram-en-2025 and Engram-es-2025. At the cost of renaming the older layouts again, I believe the names Engram-2025-en, Engram-2025-es, Engram-2021-en, and Engram-2025-es would more clearly convey that relationship. This naming scheme would also give you space for new algorithm generations in the future.
Additionally, the “Engram-2021” naming for what was previously Engram v2.0 makes referring to versions before Engram v2.0 confusing, as Engram v1.3 also came out in 2021 but used older algorithms than Engram v2.0. I think it'd be beneficial if you would document old versions somewhere in the current documentation, with whatever naming scheme you feel makes the most sense for those historical algorithms.
Finally, I'm worried about how latest Engram-en (last changed 2025-10-25) and Engram-es (last changed 2025-10-25) completely lack version numbers or information. Using “Engram-2025” names would help, but that still leaves no room for potential future releases generated by an improved optimize_layouts that isn't changed enough to be considered outside of the “Engram-2025” generation. I can understand not wanting to use semantic version numbers here, but CalVer could be a good alternative—the current layouts would then be Engram-2025-en v2025.10.25 and Engram-2025-es v2025.10.25, a theoretical new layout could be Engram-2025-en v2026.01.12, and you'd be free to refer to that new layout as Engram-2025-en v2026.01 after the month ends and Engram-2025-en v2026 after the year ends if that's the last Engram-2025-en release of the year.