Re: Last call for missing accessors

[Michael Natterer <mitch gimp org>]

On Mon, 2010-02-08 at 18:17 -0500, Matthias Clasen wrote:
> I need to do a GTK+ release tomorrow, and it realistically has to be
> API frozen to make Gnome 2.30.
> So, if any of the GTK3 crowd want to step forward and get some of the
> important missing accessors in,
> tonight would be a good time to do it...

I am aware that this had to happen at some point :)

However, for my specific case there are still some (very few) use
cases in GIMP where we access members, and where not having access
would mean a regression without having new API. For a lack of time
on my side, these features will be unavailable with sealed GTK+.

And that's just the stuff I found in GIMP. I'm sure there are many
many other cases that simply nobody thinks about. Or stuff that
is obvious, but the maintainers of the applications that use them
are not closely enough connected to GTK+ development to even notice.

So, we *will* ship GTK+ 2.20 with accessors missing. Especially
accessors needed for subclassing, which access semi-internal
stuff.

Therefore I propose an exception to the "no new API in stable"
rule so we can fulfill our promise of "port to GTK+ 2.20, and simply
recompile against GTK+ 3.0". That exception would of course only
apply to accessors for sealed members and to *nothing*else*.

I fear that if we don't allow these exceptions in GTK+ 2.20.x,
then the probability of stuff being ported to GTK+ 2.90/3.0
will be lower, thus jeopardizing the entire effort.

ciao,
--mitch