On Feb 12, 2013, at 6:30 PM, Marius Dumitru Florea <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Tue, Feb 12, 2013 at 2:26 PM, Vincent Massol <[email protected]> wrote: >> Hi devs, >> >> Here's my effort to try to put together all that has been said… :) >> >> The idea is that whenever you change an API (adding a new one or changing an >> existing one) you go through the list of strategies below, trying to find >> the first that matches your use case. >> >> * Strategy 1 (already in place): Whenever possible don't break backward >> compatibility and go through a deprecation mechanism: >> ** Deprecate classes/methods >> ** Move them to Legacy modules as soon as our code is not using them anymore >> ** Note: No need to touch CLIRR >> >> * Strategy 2 (new): If possible, code defensively, i.e. put code in internal >> and open up when api is stable later on, either when users ask for it or >> when someone feels it's the right time >> ** Note: No need to touch CLIRR >> > >> * Strategy 3 (new): If not possible (for example complete new modules where >> you wish to separate what will become stable APIs in the future from >> internal code) then use the @Unstable annotation at class level (or method >> level) >> ** Whenever we work on a new N.0 milestone 1 version, review all existing >> @Unstable annotation and for those that were added before N-1.0 remove the >> annotation > > So public APIs 'automatically' become stable after 2 release cycles or > after 2 final releases? E.g. if I added an API annotated with > @Unstable in 4.3 then it becomes stable in 6.0M1 (because it was added > before 5.0) or in 4.5? If you add in 4.3M1 for example, then when we release 6.0M1 we'll automatically remove the @Unstable annotation. Of course, the developer who added it (or any other dev) can propose to remove the @Unstable annotation at any time before that, this is just a safeguard so that we don't have API that stay unstable forever… Ideally I would have preferred 1 year as the max time but IMO this is too complex to implement (since you need to track when each @Unstable annotation was added and review them all the time). I found it simpler to review once when we start developing N.0M1. Now I'm not hung on this so if someone has a better idea, please shoot. IMO we're going to need to review this anyway after we start using it and learn from experience. Note that I've just added an @Unstable annotation to 4 new methods in ModelScriptService and IMO we'll need to add some code in ScriptServiceManager to generate some logs that the user is using an unstable API (and add a per page console UI too btw). Thanks -Vincent > Thanks, > Marius > >> ** Exclude the classes/methods marked @Unstable from CLIRR >> >> * Strategy 4: If the API is stable and the developers wants to break it >> (change of signature for example) and all other strategies don't apply, then >> either: >> ** (new) Just do it and modify the CLIRR exclude. Preferable (but not >> mandatory) send a NOTICE email to warn others devs that an API is going to >> be broken in the next release >> ** If not sure, send a PROPOSAL or VOTE email depending on how important you >> think the API to be broken is >> >> WDYT? >> >> Thanks >> -Vincent _______________________________________________ devs mailing list [email protected] http://lists.xwiki.org/mailman/listinfo/devs
