Hi Caleb, On Mar 28, 2012, at 11:28 PM, Caleb James DeLisle wrote:
> > > On 03/28/2012 02:03 PM, Vincent Massol wrote: >> >> On Mar 28, 2012, at 7:10 PM, Denis Gervalle wrote: >> >>> On Wed, Mar 28, 2012 at 12:27, Vincent Massol <[email protected]> wrote: >>> >>>> Hi devs, >>>> >>>> I'd like to change our deprecation strategy. Here's what we are currently >>>> supposed to use (we voted it a long time ago): >>>> >>>> http://dev.xwiki.org/xwiki/bin/view/Community/DevelopmentPractices#HDeprecation26LegacyStrategy >>>> >>>> " >>>> In addition our rule is to keep @deprecated methods/classes for 2 final >>>> releases after the version where they were first added has been released as >>>> final. >>>> For example if a method is deprecated in, say XE 1.3M2 then the method >>>> will be removed in 1.6M1 or after. Of course any major new release can >>>> deprecate anything. For example a XWiki 2.0 release is allowed to break >>>> backward compatibility (obviously we need to be careful to offer a >>>> migration path for users of previous major versions). >>>> " >>>> >>>> Issues: >>>> * This seems a bit harsh to me for some of our users/devs in the community. >>>> * We're not following which proves to me it's not a good rule >>>> * It doesn't say anything about Scripting APIs which require a greater >>>> stability in order not to break all wiki pages >>>> >>>> Definition of a Scripting API: >>>> * a Script Service (that's the new way of providing script apis) >>>> * a class in the "api" package in xwiki-platform-oldcore (this is the old >>>> way of providing script apis) >>>> >>>> Thus I'd like to propose this new rule: >>>> >>>> * Deprecated methods can only be removed in the next Release Cycle. For >>>> example something deprecated in version N.x can be removed in version N+1.y >>>> where x and y can be anything. This is logical since N+1 means a new major >>>> release and it's common to understand that major releases have no guarantee >>>> of API compatibility (See >>>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_versioningfor example). >>>> * For scripting APIs we can remove deprecated API only after 4 Release >>>> Cycles. For example since we're in 4.x this means we >>> >>> >>> Why four ? isn't it too much ? >> >> The reason I proposed 4 is because nowadays there still are quite a few >> XWiki 1.x instances in the wild so if people have coded apps on 1.x and then >> upgrade to 4.0 (for ex) it would be nice if their app still works. However I >> think it's ok to not support apis done in 0.9. And next year it would be ok >> to drop 1.x api support, etc. >> >> It's long but then we can see in the wild that it's important we provide >> stable scripting apis for users since they're used a lot while java apis are >> used by more savvy user (developers) and thus having a shorter removing >> cycle for them (1 year) should be ok. >> >> What would you like to propose instead? > > I'd rather we had no hard rules lest dogmatic adherence to the rules becomes > an excuse not to fulfill our obligation to do what's best for the software. > I'm not exactly sure what `break' means since there's no reason I can see for > these functions to be removed from the compatibility aspect. The reason for having a well-defined rule is: * I think it's better than having to send a vote every time we want to remove a deprecated api. It certainly is much simpler. * Publicly document it so that our users will know about this rule and adapt their deprecation replacement strategy as a consequence I really think we ought to publish our deprecation and removal policy. > I propose: > > #1 Move remaining deprecated scripting API methods from oldcore into > legacy-oldcore compatibility aspect. > That means these: > http://nexus.xwiki.org/nexus/service/local/repositories/releases/archive/org/xwiki/platform/xwiki-platform-oldcore/4.0-milestone-1/xwiki-platform-oldcore-4.0-milestone-1-javadoc.jar/!/index.html This is *already* our strategy, see the "2-step" strategy defined here: http://dev.xwiki.org/xwiki/bin/view/Community/DevelopmentPractices#HDeprecation26LegacyStrategy Everyone is already supposed to do this and do this regularly. The issue is that before being able to move a lot of code we need to fix a lot of deprecation usages. <OT>It could be nice to organize a "deprecation day" where we try to squash as many deprecation usages as possible</OT> > #2 Get xwiki-enterprise building and testing with xwiki-platform-oldcore > instead of xwiki-platform-legacy-oldcore. > Add an xwiki-enterprise-legacy-jetty-hsql build profile so that we can test > in parallel, with and without legacy-oldcore. > I ran the UI tests and it appears that we have a few dependencies on > legacy-oldcore. IMO this is very bad. This is very very bad and goes against our current policy indeed. > However it doesn't look like we have too many. > Lets get it running, see the failing tests, report the issues, then fix them. This is a very good idea and I'm all for it. > #3 Stop shipping legacy-oldcore by default. Users can always swap > platform-oldcore for it on their own. It's not just oldcore, we have several legacy modules and theoretically we can have as many as we have modules. I don't think we cans stop shipping a distribution with legacy modules but what would be nice is to start shipping a distribution without legacy modules. We could even highlight this one as first listed to raise awareness. > #4 Aggressively move deprecated internal (non-script api) code into the > compatibility aspect, this will allow us to simplify the oldcore, and > potentially even remove dependencies. This is already our strategy. Again for some cases it's hard but I'm all for it. A lot of us introduce new APIs but don't update the code to use the new API creating a lot of deprecation usages suddenly. I'm all for this too. > If we want to stall, we can stall at #3, having 1, 2, and some of 4 taken > care of will make the final decision the flip of a switch. This is all great but it doesn't solve the VOTE. It's a different topic and something we've already VOTED and doing. I agree it would be nice to do it more aggressively but it's very different from the deprecation policy I'd like to find an agreement on. Unless I misunderstood you and your proposal is to NEVER remove deprecated APIs, which is a solution of course. I'm a bit afraid of the consequences. BTW I'd like to update our current strategy documentation to a 3-step strategy: * Step 1: deprecate * Step 2: move to legacy modules (this means removing our usages of the deprecated apis) * Step 3: remove from legacy modules <-- This is what we're voting on here i.e. we could do step3 only when we've done steps 1 and 2 first. This is a good strategy IMO because it means that we would have done step2 which is required to be able to remove a deprecated api anyway… ;) Thanks -Vincent > Caleb > > > >> >> Thanks >> -Vincent >> >>>> can remove deprecated APIs from 0.x releases. And when we start 5.x we >>>> will be able to remove deprecated scripting apis deprecated in 1.x. >>>> >>>> Here's my +1 >>>> >>>> Thanks >>>> -Vincent _______________________________________________ devs mailing list [email protected] http://lists.xwiki.org/mailman/listinfo/devs
