[Sugar-devel] Deprecation policy - was: About show-launcher option

[Manuel Quiñones]

2014/1/13 Daniel Narvaez <dwnarvaez at gmail.com>:
> IMO it should be deprecated and then removed at some point. In general, I
> think our approach to API stability is way too ad hoc. We need some rules,
> even if very simple, to define what is public, how/when it is deprecated,
> and how/when it is removed.

What about?

- when an API change arises, we discuss a time range for activities to adapt
  the time range is measured in number of releases

- we do the change in the code, leaving the old code

- the deprecation is marked in the old code, adding a comment, logging a warning

- the deprecation is announced in each release notes,
  asking activity developers to update their code
  mentioning for how many number of releases it will keep working

- activity developers upload new versions to activities.sugarlabs.org,
  marking the corresponding Sugar version

- after the aggreed time, the old code is removed

This is more or less what we've been doing.  I think when the toolbars
API changed we gave about 1 year for adaptation.

-- 
.. manuq ..