Re: Bonobo freeze

[James Henstridge <james daa com au>]

On 26 Jan 2001, Miguel de Icaza wrote:

>
> > 	  I anticipate that we could fully freeze the API, and commit to
> > binary and source compatibility for all of bonobo by 1st Feb. However
> > clearly Miguel has the final say and is currently in Switzerland.
> > Furthermore, we will both be at LWE at this time, so in reality I propose
> > releasing a final API reference version on the 5th or so.
>
> It is too soon.  Given that LWE is next week, it basically means, that
> the freeze is effective this week.  So, no, I do not feel confortable
> with that.  And I do still think that we can keep a library that is
> backwards binary compatible in the officially supported parts, and not
> in others.

People have a habit of using APIs you would prefer they left alone.  If a
library is classed as unstable, then they can't blame you if their app
breaks.  If it is a stable library, then this is a problem.

If parts of bonobo really can't be frozen for the gnome 1.4 release, would
it be possible to make the developer define a preprocessor symbol like
BONOBO_ENABLE_UNSTABLE_APIS to use those APIs?  If they have to actively
turn on the APIs, then maybe it won't be so much of a problem.

Of course, having a complete stable API for a stable library is nicer ...

James.