On Jun 7, 2011, at 10:17 AM, Christopher Done wrote:
On 7 June 2011 15:05, James Cook <mo...@deepbondi.net> wrote:
It's good, in my opinion, to be able to state succinctly in a
standardized way that, although it does something now, what the code
does and how it does it are probably going to change in the future.
I think no one really updates this field and it's a human factor
that could otherwise be generated by Hackage reliably. I'm using
many packages that are "experimental" or "unstable" that've been
stable for a year or more. The field is mostly useless to me. The
stability of a package can be judged based on how often the versions
bump up based on the PVP and/or the exports of the package change,
that is something Hackage could trivially do. Agreed, the naming is
also ambiguous, “API stability” seems more straight-forward.
I can't speak for anyone besides myself, but I do update it and its
value is determined, for me, in a way that could never be automated.
When I mark a package provisional or experimental, I am saying that I
am not convinced that the API I've created is the best one I can come
up with, and often I have specific plans to ("when I get around to
it") change it. It is an indication of intent for, not history of,
change. Similarly, when I do reach a design that I'm satisfied with,
I change the stability field. But an automated decision system has no
conceivable way of knowing that the major change I just made will be
the last major change.
-- James
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