Re: Upcoming platform deprecations

[Elijah Newren <newren gmail com>]

On 10/10/05, Jeff Waugh <jdub perkypants org> wrote:
> <quote who="Murray Cumming">
>
> > > We're not - we're just saying that they're going to be deprecated soon.
> >
> > However it's very easy to interepret that paragraph as "they are no longer
> > supported", so let's change the wording at least.
> >
> > "We expect to deprecate these modules in a future version of GNOME when we
> > have suitable replacements for them. However, their ABI will never be
> > broken." might be simpler.

I like that new wording.

> Soon, they will no longer be part of the release and therefore 'unsupported'
> (even though, yes, that word is difficult and imprecise).

They won't be??  Except for maybe esound (and audiofile?), I don't see
how we could pull any of them out of the release any time soon without
breaking stuff.  Or do you mean shoved into another release set like
"deprecated platform modules" or something like that?

Like Murray, I also don't like using the word unsupported.  I prefer
something more like "we'll continue supporting them about as much as
we are now" (which in many cases implies virtually unsupported but
doesn't scare people by making them think we're lowering our support
level), but only if we really need to mention support level.  But
leaving at something simpler like "this is deprecated but we won't
break API/ABI"  is better.

> > However, I'm personally against making non-official official statements
> > that just spread doubt. An API is either deprecated or it's not.

If so, that would mean your suggested wording for that page is flawed
too, Murray.  (Which I happen to disagree with).

> No, this wishy-washy approach has gone on too long. We need to tell our
> platform users that these things are either a) not good or b) going away.
> Not making it clear has been a train wreck.

Agreed; having to learn on IRC by word of mouth to "not use X; it's
broken" or to "not use X because it will be replaced by something sane
in the future" is not cool.  It's part of what Brian's been
complaining about.  Obviously, we need to pick our wording carefully,
but we need to communicate intentions somehow.

Cheers,
Elijah