On Sat, Jun 25, 2011 at 2:45 PM, Alan W. Irwin <ir...@beluga.phys.uvic.ca> wrote: > > Finally, I think we should make clear in README.release that the > plcolorbar API is still considered to be experimental, and we should > also discourage (by an appropriate post to plplot-devel) propagation > to non-C languages until after we finalize the plcolorbar API during > the next release cycle. At this time I don't actually plan any > further API changes for plcolorbar, but we found we needed additional > API changes once we became experienced with pllegend, and I suspect > our plcolorbar experience will also be the same. >
I am bringing this on to the development list as I agree with this both for plcolorbar and for new functions in general. I would like to propose a new plplot-volatile.h header for the C API which would house any new PLplot functions until they have had enough testing and use to have a fixed API. For a simple function this may happen more or less immediately, while more complex functions such as pllegend and plcolorbar may live in plplot-volatile.h for a development release or few. This provides a clear message to users and developers that the function in question may still be in flux, and therefore so will any code using it. There has been a lot of new development in the 5.9.x PLplot development cycle so far, and I think this is a very good thing. However, there have been a few occasions where APIs have changed after a formal 5.9.x development release, requiring propagation of these changes to all of the language bindings and statements in README.release explaining the changes. My hope is that something along the lines of a plplot-volatile.h header will simplify this process somewhat. Any opinions on this? Hez ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ All of the data generated in your IT infrastructure is seriously valuable. Why? It contains a definitive record of application performance, security threats, fraudulent activity, and more. Splunk takes this data and makes sense of it. IT sense. And common sense. http://p.sf.net/sfu/splunk-d2d-c2 _______________________________________________ Plplot-devel mailing list Plplot-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/plplot-devel
