Earwin Burrfoot (JIRA) wrote:
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bq. If there are sane/smart ways to change our back compat policy, I think you
have seen that no one would object.
It's not a matter of finding a smart way. It is a matter of sacrifice that has
to be made and readiness to take the blame for decision that can be unpopular
with someone.
You go zealously for back-compat - you sacrifice readability/maintainability of
your code but free users from any troubles when they want to 'simply upgrade'.
You adopt more relaxed policy - you sacrifice users' time, but in return you
gain cleaner codebase and new stuff can be written and used faster.
There's no way to ride two horses at once.
Some people are comfortable with current policies. Few cringe when they hear
things like above. Most theoretically want to relax the rules. Nobody's ready
to give up something for it.
I don't agree. I think everyone would be willing to give something up.
But some won't want to give up certain things.
Okay, there's an escape hatch I (and someone else) mentioned on the list
before. Adopting a fixed release cycle with small intervals between releases
(compared to what we have now). Fixed - as in, releases are made each N months
instead of when everyone feels they finished and polished up all their pet
projects and there's nothing else exciting to do. That way we can keep the
current policy, but deletion-through-deprecation approach will work, at last!
Thats a big change. I think its a nice idea, but I don't know how
practical it is. Most of us are basically volunteering time for this
type of thing. Even still, with the pace of development lately (and you
can be sure that the current pace is a *new* thing, Lucene did not
always have this amount of activity), it might make sense. But that idea
needs a champion, and frankly I don't have the time right now (it
wouldn't likely be in my realm anyway). And thats probably the deal with
most others. They have work and/or other itches that are higher priority
than championing a big change.
This solution is halfassed, I can already see discussions like "That was a big
change, let's keep the deprecates around longer, say - for a couple of releases.",
it doesn't solve good-name-thrashing problem, as you have to go through two rounds of
deprecation to change semantics on something, but keep the name.
But this is something better than what we have now, a-a-and this is something
that needs commiter backing.
bq. Thats a great indication to me that the issue is not simple.
The issue is simple, the choice is not. And maintaining status quo is free.
Right. Its not about anyone arguing against it. People made arguments
and raised points from various angles - none of that biases the
conclusion, it only strengthens it. I poke holes at things I fully
support - it should survive the shot if it makes sense. It comes down to
the effort involved in guiding this forward. I know the majority want to
see something succeed. Probably the best argument is the one Mike first
championed - we are hurting new users by saddling them with back compat.
I think we all want a better compromise, leaning further towards out of
the box experience than we do now.
bq. Giving up is really not the answer though
It is the answer. I have no moral right to hammer my ideals into heads that did
tremendously more for the project, than I did. And maintaining a patch queue
over Lucene trunk is not 'that' hard.
Its not about hammering your ideals - that almost feels like what you
are doing, but frankly, it doesn't help. If you even just keep prompting
the issue as it dies away you will likely keep progress going. There is
a solution that everyone will accept. I promise you that. Its more work
than it looks to find that solution and guide it to fruition though. Its
fully possible, and I'm sure it will happen eventually. Would have beat
even money that Mike had it a few weeks ago. No dice it looks though ;)
- Mark
--
- Mark
http://www.lucidimagination.com
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