Frank Schönheit - Sun Microsystems Germany wrote: > Hi Thorsten/Mathias, > >> Yeah. But turning this around, this is how we currently handle >> existing API: banning completely unproblematic changes to supposedly >> very infrequently used API, in the hope that this will keep extensions >> runnable. > > Exactly. Some very early interfaces (i.e. XPropertyBag and > css.util.logging) are more or less flawed, have never been implemented > in OOo, and nonetheless could not be fixed just for some "generic > compatibility" issue which does not apply to them. Quite painful. > > Other less basic cases (my beloved services which effectively describe > implementations, where I am not even allowed to *add* properties or > interfaces) are even more numerous. > >>> Let's make incompatibilites explicit, no matter if they are caused >>> by API or behavioral changes. And allow extensions to deal with that >>> but don't force them to become incompatible "just because". > > Hey, did somebody say "versioning of interfaces" here? :)
That would be a possible implementation for my request, yes. But I assume not the only one. I already had to think about that and the most "interesting" part will be how client applications can easily declare their requirements. We need some tooling that could generate information about used types at compile or packaging time. I think there are different kinds ans degrees of "incompatibility" not at least depending on the programming language of the client. A lot of incompatible changes will not create any problems for Basic scripts even they would make a C++ programm crash. Some incompatibilities will force client code to be changed, many others will just need a recompile. Perhaps before we jump to conclusions somebody should create a list of possible incompatibilies and their influence on clients using one of the current language bindings. IMHO we can omit possible future language bindings here. We even *should* do so as this is the least important compatibility restriction we have. Ciao, Mathias -- Mathias Bauer (mba) - Project Lead OpenOffice.org Writer OpenOffice.org Engineering at Sun: http://blogs.sun.com/GullFOSS Please don't reply to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]". I use it for the OOo lists and only rarely read other mails sent to it. --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
