Issue #1648 is about anticipating a possible future UI, the --depth
option, by making some internal function interfaces take a tri-state
'depth' enum instead of a bi-state 'recurse' boolean.
Although there are good arguments both ways (see the issue for links),
I think this change should not go into 1.0, for a couple of reasons.
First, we don't know for sure how the --depth option is going to work,
or that we're definitely going to do it at all. Yes, we've discussed
it, but the enhancement has not been spec'd out to the degree it would
be if we were implementing it right now. It feels wrong to make an
anticipatory internal API adjustment for a feature that isn't even
completely designed yet.
Second, even if the --depth option does get implemented in the near
future, and looks exactly as we expect it to, there are strategies for
dealing with the compatibility issues then. We can keep the current
function names as wrappers around new functions that end in "_depth"
or whatever, officially deprecate the old ones, and then in a future
API-changing release, make the final break in the obvious way.
This strategy can be applied to other API changes too, but I think
it's particularly appropriate here, given that the UI feature for
which we're proposing the new API doesn't even exist yet.
So, I'm not planning to vote for #1648. This mail is not a veto, but
I hope it encourages others to not vote for #1648 as well.
Thanks,
-Karl
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Received on Fri Dec 19 21:22:34 2003