Dear Bill, Thanks for the insightful recommendation and description.
Following your feedback, we decided to enter a process of reexamining our versioning policy. It won't be quick, but we'll be working on exploring new alternatives that will help you handle the world's inevitable imperfections :-) Hope to update on the process during the next quarter (whish it could be sooner, but we have a hard deadline from three Google products that rely on our API and must launch soon). Thanks for your patience and vote of confidence :-) Michael On Thu, Sep 8, 2011 at 11:12 PM, Bill Kuker <[email protected]> wrote: > VizGuy once said: > > "We are working hard to make sure that we do not break the > functionality of the charts. > We plan to change the version only if we will intentionally change the > behavior of the library, not on every enhancement or addition." > > > > And beleive me, I work hard too: > > I work hard to read the documentation and use the library only as > intended and supported. I work hard to not use any undocumented > features and I work hard not to rely on any bugs. I work hard to check > my applications against the release candidates and I work very hard to > get any problems fixed before the release. > > > > I wish I were perfect: > > I wish I had never unintentially taken advantage of a bug in a > library. Heck, I wish I had never had to stoop so low as to > intentionally take advantage of a bug in a library to get something > done. I wish I had all the time in the world to read the documentation > and make sure I had everything right. > > > > I wish the Viz team were perfect: > > Yeah, I wish there were never a bug, not even a bug that would allow a > Date column when the documentation clearly says String only. Yeah, > accepting a Date on the library side is as much a bug as me sending it > is. Honestly though I would rather they kept making additions and > improvements to an AWSOME library rather than spend 99% of their time > checking that inputs conform to the documentation. > > > > Pobody's Nerfect: > > The current versioning scheme is predecated on perfection from both > parties, and even if I were so generous as to grant VizGuy perfection > I would never make such a claim for myself. Having read a great number > of questions on this list I don't think I'd make that claim for any of > my fellow Viz API users. We've known since before the first punch card > that programmers are imperfect at best, and reckless, documentation > ignoring, integration test skipping maniacs at worst. > > > > Please use Versions: > > Yeah I messed up. I admit it, the documetation was clear. I didn't > read that part. Still, a graph came out. A nice graph. I liked that > graph. My Boss liked that graph, QA liked that graph and my Customer > liked that graph. That version of the library got the job done and we > love it, warts and all. Please let it keep working. > > When I upgrade to the new version my graph will break. I'll complain. > I'll read the documentation. I'll apologize. I'll fix my code so it > works with the new version. Nobody's perfect. > > > -Bill > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Google Visualization API" group. > To post to this group, send email to > [email protected]. > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > [email protected]. > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/google-visualization-api?hl=en. > > -- Michael Fink Product Manager Google Chart Tools -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Google Visualization API" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/google-visualization-api?hl=en.
