Re: Deprecated InkAPI / ts.h functions?
Hi All, On Thu, 2010-06-17 at 20:26 -0600, Leif Hedstrom wrote: Anyone else have any thoughts / comments on this topic ? Unless it gets voted down, I'll file a bug and list the APIs that we'd remove from the 2.2 release. Yes, it's semi painful, but I think in the long term, it helps developers not use APIs that we no longer support (and which have better versions anyways). First, I'm sorry I am a week late to this discussion. I know that's annoying. I think the proposed change almost always has negative consequences. This is a new project and in just its second release this change breaks compatibility of existing plugins. Over a change in minor version numbers no less! TS will get, fairly, a reputation for not having any kind of stable API or ABI and being a platform with a high maintenance burden to operate. I know the intention is to be developer friendly, but it really is the opposite of that for both plugin developer and administrator (who will find they cannot update their TS because their plugins require porting to 2.2 with no notable improvement in plugin functionality.). The 2.0 examples directory contains multiple uses of functions marked deprecated in the documentation. INKMimeHdrFieldValueInsert() is one such example. If the illustration code in the 2.0 release cannot abide by the deprecated warning it makes sense that developers reading that code would feel free to ignore it as well. If this change is made, example plugin code that is shipped as part of 2.0 will not run or compile on 2.2. That breaks reasonable user expectations. If there were a solid technical reason for removing the functions (i.e. they cannot be fixed to implement what they are defined to do, or their presence prevents the implementation of some other function or improvement) I would feel differently. But I don't see one here. I certainly have plenty of interfaces of my own that I have designed and then later wished never saw the light of day. But if they are public interfaces, then my experience really says it is best to just suck it up and live with them in perpetuity even if deleting them would be more convenient for me. In my opinion, there are several other better ways of improving plugin design decisions. First, clean up the example code to remove deprecated code. Second, clean up the documentation so the deprecated functions are not mixed in with the stuff you want people to use - exile them to a deprecated appendix. Third, use compiler attributes to nag people who do use them anyhow.. Finally, in a major release (i.e. 3.0) perhaps remove the SDK prototypes for the deprecated functions but preserve the code in order to maintain a stable ABI for old plugins. -Patrick
Re: Deprecated InkAPI / ts.h functions?
On Thu, 2010-06-24 at 08:09 -0600, Leif Hedstrom wrote: How about we do this for 2.2 (this is basically a summary of your ideas): I'm in favor of that plan, thanks for responding. One more thing to think about when the time comes to break compatibility in a new major release. Doing so will give people a reason not to upgrade, which is definitely not what you want. :) That kind of inertia can be overwhelming - how long did it take for apache server 2.x to finally supplant 1.x in installations? 1.x had to be maintained with fixes for years because 2.x wasn't a viable upgrade path for lots of users. If it hasn't been a pain in practice to keep the interfaces alive during 2.x then you might just be inventing a headache instead of removing one. In any event, the relative merits of all that can be better balanced when 3.0 comes along in the future. -Patrick
Re: Deprecated InkAPI / ts.h functions?
+1 on removing them since better alternatives exist and these were deprecated back in the INKT days. -George On 6/17/10 7:26 PM, Leif Hedstrom wrote: On 06/16/2010 12:14 AM, Nick Kew wrote: On 16 Jun 2010, at 01:05, Leif Hedstrom wrote: Hi, there's a fairly large number of APIs in InkAPI.cc / ts.h which are marked deprecated. The fact that they are deprecated implies that they were removed quite a while ago during Inktomi's release cycles. Should we still keep these for the v2.2 release, and nuke them for v3.0? Or nuke'em now and avoid having to deal with people using deprecated APIs in the plugins (they are all documented as deprecated already)? This raises the question: does trafficserver have a published policy on API/ABI stability? Under what circumstances is/isn't it promised? Anyone else have any thoughts / comments on this topic ? Unless it gets voted down, I'll file a bug and list the APIs that we'd remove from the 2.2 release. Yes, it's semi painful, but I think in the long term, it helps developers not use APIs that we no longer support (and which have better versions anyways). -- leif
Re: Deprecated InkAPI / ts.h functions?
On 06/16/2010 12:14 AM, Nick Kew wrote: On 16 Jun 2010, at 01:05, Leif Hedstrom wrote: Hi, there's a fairly large number of APIs in InkAPI.cc / ts.h which are marked deprecated. The fact that they are deprecated implies that they were removed quite a while ago during Inktomi's release cycles. Should we still keep these for the v2.2 release, and nuke them for v3.0? Or nuke'em now and avoid having to deal with people using deprecated APIs in the plugins (they are all documented as deprecated already)? This raises the question: does trafficserver have a published policy on API/ABI stability? Under what circumstances is/isn't it promised? Anyone else have any thoughts / comments on this topic ? Unless it gets voted down, I'll file a bug and list the APIs that we'd remove from the 2.2 release. Yes, it's semi painful, but I think in the long term, it helps developers not use APIs that we no longer support (and which have better versions anyways). -- leif
Re: Deprecated InkAPI / ts.h functions?
On 16 Jun 2010, at 01:05, Leif Hedstrom wrote: Hi, there's a fairly large number of APIs in InkAPI.cc / ts.h which are marked deprecated. The fact that they are deprecated implies that they were removed quite a while ago during Inktomi's release cycles. Should we still keep these for the v2.2 release, and nuke them for v3.0? Or nuke'em now and avoid having to deal with people using deprecated APIs in the plugins (they are all documented as deprecated already)? This raises the question: does trafficserver have a published policy on API/ABI stability? Under what circumstances is/isn't it promised? -- Nick Kew
Re: Deprecated InkAPI / ts.h functions?
On 06/16/2010 12:14 AM, Nick Kew wrote: On 16 Jun 2010, at 01:05, Leif Hedstrom wrote: Hi, there's a fairly large number of APIs in InkAPI.cc / ts.h which are marked deprecated. The fact that they are deprecated implies that they were removed quite a while ago during Inktomi's release cycles. Should we still keep these for the v2.2 release, and nuke them for v3.0? Or nuke'em now and avoid having to deal with people using deprecated APIs in the plugins (they are all documented as deprecated already)? This raises the question: does trafficserver have a published policy on API/ABI stability? Under what circumstances is/isn't it promised? Well, we said we'd try to keep API / ABI compatibility with major releases (2.x, 3.x etc.). This is why I'm asking for an opinion here on these deprecated APIs, I'm really torn on the issue myself. With 20-20 hindsight, we should have removed them for the 2.0 release, but that didn't happen :-/. Fwiw, these deprecated APIs have all been replaced with newer, better versions, which we really should encourage people to use. The new versions have all been available since long before we open sourced TS. -- Leif
Re: Deprecated InkAPI / ts.h functions?
I vote for dropping in 2.2. Tuesday, June 15, 2010, 7:05:37 PM, you wrote: Should we still keep these for the v2.2 release, and nuke them for v3.0? Or nuke'em now and avoid having to deal with people using deprecated APIs in the plugins (they are all documented as deprecated already)?
