[Xapian-discuss] Deprecation policy question

[Richard Boulton]

[Bringing this back onto the list so others can see.]

Jean-Francois Dockes wrote:
> Richard Boulton writes:
>  > Of course, we could just specify that the "contract" is that we'll not 
>  > break compilation as long as you either don't specify -Werror, or 
>  > specify -Wno-deprecated.
>  > 
>  > What I'm really wondering is how many (if any) xapian users actually 
>  > compile with -Werror, and would thus end up with broken builds in this 
>  > case.  And also, whether such users are compiling this way because they 
>  > want to get the latest warnings, and would appreciate their build 
>  > breaking in this situation.
> 
> Obviously, you are free to specify things the way you like :) Does the
> Xapian web site have an explicit description of how the version numbers are
> used ?

Not really - there is a section in 
http://www.xapian.org/docs/deprecation.html about the compatibilty 
"guarantees" we try and provide, but it doesn't discuss things like the 
difference between a major and a minor release.

> As a user, I find it useful if packages have a clear separation of what the
> numbers mean, so that they can be a bit more useful:
> 
> - Smallest level: no voluntary disruption expected for any reasonable use
>   of the software (using -Werror falls inside "reasonable" in my view).
> 
> - Next level: minor disruption possible.
 >
> - Next: serious disruption expected.
> 
> (The "voluntary" at the first level is there because serious trouble, like
> a reindex, could be forced by an unavoidable bug fix, but the cause is the
> bug, not the revision here).

A sensible distinction.

> My preferred solution would actually be that you bump the middle number
> whenever you feel like adding the warning. So the -Werror people have their
> breakage and I have my numbers :)

That might be a plausible system in future.  I can certainly see merit 
in it.

-- 
Richard