RUŌOD Lab

Level 5 · Perfume Mathematics and Formula Design

Formula Versioning: Study Guide

Read our version control guide, then bring order to your own Level 4 trials: number them, link each to its parent, and record exactly one reason per version.

Intermediate 15 min study By the RUŌOD Lab team Updated

In short

A version number identifies one exact formula, permanently. The reference guide describes the practice in full. This study guide applies it to the accords you have already made, which is usually messier than you would hope, and that is the lesson.

What you will learn

  • Apply a numbering rule to real trials
  • Link versions so a project's history can be read

Before this lesson: Spot a Calculation Error: Study Guide

What to look for as you read

  • When a change deserves a new number.
  • How branches are recorded.
  • What the record must keep, even for rejected versions.
  • How a version number differs from a mod number used with a client.

Practical exercise: Version your own history

About 25 minutes · You will have: a one-page version tree for one accord

  1. Choose your longest-running accord from Level 4.
  2. List every trial you can find, in order. Note any you cannot reconstruct.
  3. Assign numbers that only go up, and draw a tree showing which came from which.
  4. Next to each, write the one change and the outcome: kept, adjusted or abandoned.
  5. Write the rule you will follow from now on, in one sentence.

You have done this well if someone else could follow the tree, and you have noted any gaps honestly.

Knowledge check

1. What is a version number's job?
Show the answer

To identify one exact formula forever. If a number can ever mean two formulas, it no longer tells you anything.

2. You tweak v4 slightly. What should you do?
Show the answer

Save it as v5, leaving v4 untouched. Small unrecorded changes are how formulas are lost.

3. What should each new version record beyond its lines?
Show the answer

Its parent and the reason for the change. Without those, you have a pile of formulas rather than a history.

Further reading and materials

Written and reviewed by the RUŌOD Lab team. This is general education, not legal, regulatory, medical or safety advice. Example dilutions and exercises are for learning, are not validated products, and have not been safety-assessed. Completing a lesson confers no qualification. How we check these lessons.