Re: gtk+ API change; who should fix it? (A.k.a. Why isn't GNOME 2.19.4 released yet?)

["Gustavo J. A. M. Carneiro" <gjc inescporto pt>]

On Qui, 2007-06-21 at 23:39 -0300, Johan Dahlin wrote:
> Joseph Sacco wrote:
> > The currently available version of pygtk is the stable branch.  I would
> > expect the development branchof pygtk to adapt.
> >   
> I'm ready to adapt but only if the general consent is that API changes 
> are okay.
> 
> My personal opinion is that the API shouldn't be allowed to change, once 
> an API is added it should stay stable until the major version is bumped 
> (3.0 in the case of gtk+).

  I'm 100% with Johan on this one.  Gtk+ 2.11.x broke API and ABI.
Before 2.11.x, the structure is:

struct _GtkTooltips
{
  GtkObject parent_instance;

  GtkWidget *tip_window;
  GtkWidget *tip_label;
  GtkTooltipsData *active_tips_data;
  GList *tips_data_list;

  guint   delay : 30;
  guint	  enabled : 1;
  guint   have_grab : 1;
  guint   use_sticky_delay : 1;
  gint	  timer_tag;
  GTimeVal last_popdown;
};

None of these fields is marked private, therefore they are public.
Public fields are part of the API and cannot be changed as per GNOME
Developer Platform.  Probably there is a way to introduce the new
tooltips without having to break the old tooltips API!

Just because pygtk _can_ adapt doesn't mean that it _should_.

In fact there are at least a couple of other changes in gtk+ 2.11.x that
break the API; we should really be more careful about these things...

-- 
Gustavo J. A. M. Carneiro
INESC Porto, Telecommunications and Multimedia Unit
"The universe is always one step beyond logic." -- Frank Herbert