Re: adding interfaces to stable libraries

[Havoc Pennington <hp redhat com>]

Miguel de Icaza <miguel ximian com> writes: 
> 	* Gnome Libs is always backwards binary compatible.  There are
>           no promises on forwards compatibility.
>
> 	  There are no promises, because sometimes you just need to
> 	  add new API calls to the system.  Just like Linux adds new
> 	  system calls to the system.
> 
> 	  I do not see how we can change this.

Yes yes, that's all well and good.

But the point is that anytime you do this it causes hassle and is a
PITA. So you should not do it for some goofy 5-line function on a
deprecated widget. ;-)

There is also a lot of value to explicitly marking the API as new and
not-for-gratuitous-use, as with the gtk_experimental_theme_engine_only
functions you mentioned.

If I have to upgrade my gnome-libs or entire system to get mini icons
on app windows, or I have to hack spec files to enable that feature,
then I might say OK, that's worth it. But if I have to go through some
hassle to save someone 5 lines of cut-and-paste, it's just annoying.

Not that the hassle this causes is _huge_ - I don't want to act like
it's the end of the world. It's just clearly _more_ hassle than
cutting-and-pasting a 5-line deprecated function.

Not a big deal, just whining a bit since I got two bug reports this
morning. ;-)

Havoc

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