On Thu, Jan 20, 2011 at 8:58 AM, Robert Newson <[email protected]> wrote: > +1 on using ?l2b (and other macros) in all src/couchdb code. Any > lingering list_to_binary calls should be switched to the macro. > > I think it's too early to split out the header file to allow use by > plugin authors. I'm in a minority, I think, by saying that without > some extra work, we are not ready to claim we support plugins. > > I'd like to see, at minimum, a versioning scheme to declare > compatibility between couchdb and plugins (like browsers do, for > example). Beyond that, a statement on what parts of the interior of > couchdb are considered stable enough for plugin authors to depend on. > > B. >
I think you are spot on and totally forgetting how Erlang works. I agree completely that we shouldn't *say* that we support plugins as we start adding the facilities to *allow* for plugins. Also, given that Erlang is a hugely flat namespace that allows anyone to call anything with impunity, it doesn't really matter what we *say* we consider stable so much as actually keeping it stable. For the next bit and awhile, the only people writing plugins are probably going to be already fairly familiar with Erlang and the internals and I think we should encourage them to do so, so that we can get feedback on what parts of the API *need* to be stable. Also, I just had a bit of a freak out there thinking I'd forgotten to update the app file but then remembered that every copy of Erlang is tied to its version, so that's already taken care.
