Garrett D'Amore wrote: > Don Cragun wrote: >>> Date: Fri, 19 Sep 2008 14:01:25 -0700 >>> From: "Garrett D'Amore" <gdamore at sun.com> >>> >>> Shouldn't the Human Readable Output really be Not-An-Interface?
In trying to understand the ARC stability classifications, please try and remember what we are trying to do here. By labeling something as "Committed", "Volatile" or "Not-An-Interface", we are setting customer's and user's expectations about how we might change those interfaces. When talking about a filter like awk or tr or even cat, the spec for that program is pretty clear about the transform applied by the program. Input + program = output, and that output is governed by the filter's spec. In this case, with gawk, that transform is probably about as "Committed" as one can get. On the other hand, there are error messages, help screens and the like that are intended to be human readable. Are those things interfaces? If not, then they are "Not An Interface". If so, (e.g., we expect people to parse the output of gawk --help) then they are no longer simply "human readable output", but are instead programming interfaces that may or may not be useful in a localized world. TANSTAAFL. (I am recalling a packaging/installer conversation where someone is parsing the output of "foo --help" to check for the presence or absence of a particular command line flag because the consumer needs to run with both old and new versions...) So, project team, what things are you trying to identify under the heading of "Human Readable Output", how do you expect that output to be used, and what is the proper interface stability for it? -John
