[Nitro] Fwd: [Facets] Lay me out 2.0

[Arne Brasseur]

Since it's a 'major point' release I see no big problem in breaking 
backwards compatibility. Especially since it's not trivial in this case.

It would be better if the 1.8 branch could have bugfix support for a 
bounded period of time, so people have time to migrate.

As George said, focus on a clean and stable API that can be used for a 
long time, instead of focusing on backwards compatibility.

Alternatively there could be a separate 'adapter' gem with all the 
redirects to make migrating easier.

(ab)

George Moschovitis schreef:
> Personaly I am not that interested in backwards compatibility. But I 
> do expect that the 2.0 API will stay frozen for a long time. The 
> constant changes are not good for this project.
>
> Moreover, I do not think that there is an easy way to offer backwards 
> compatibility. I would suggest that you do not 'pollute' the facets 
> 2.0 directory with backwards compatibility code. Whoever wants to use 
> the old API should use the older gem.
>
> thank you,
> George.
>
> On 9/9/07, *TRANS* <transfire at gmail.com <mailto:transfire at gmail.com>> 
> wrote:
>
>     ---------- Forwarded message ----------
>     From: Trans <transfire at gmail.com <mailto:transfire at gmail.com>>
>     Date: Sep 9, 2007 6:57 AM
>     Subject: [Facets] Lay me out 2.0
>     To: facets-universal at rubyforge.org
>     <mailto:facets-universal at rubyforge.org>
>
>
>     I'm just about ready to release version 2.0. I have only one last
>     major decision to make, and it is an important one. So I thought it a
>     good idea to put it out to the community.
>
>     As you know, Facets 1.8+ is laid out between facets/core/ and facets/
>     more/ subdirectories. There is also a facet/ shortcut directory that
>     simply contains files that redirect back to the first two. The idea
>     being that the extension method libs were in core/, the other libs in
>     more/, and facet/ was for convenience.
>
>     With Facets 2.0 there are two points that make things different:
>
>     1) A goal of 2.0 was to make all the libs directly available via
>     facets/, without the need for core/ or more/ or redirection.
>
>     2) The extensions are no longer stored one-file-per-method, but are
>     instead bundled with other closely related methods. However, Facets
>     will still provide per-method requires via redirection files.
>
>     So those two points change things a bit. To take them into account,
>     the current 2.0 layout looks like this:
>
>       lib/facets/  <-- all libs
>       lib/facet/  <-- method redirects
>
>     Unfortunately this layout almost completely breaks backward-
>     compatibility with 1.8.
>
>     Is there a remedy? I could offer backward compatibility if I did this
>     instead:
>
>       lib/facets/core/  <-- method redirects
>       lib/facets/more/ <-- additional libs
>       lib/facets/xore/  <-- extension libs
>
>     Yes, the xore/ is a bit weird (do you have a better name?), but it
>     keeps with the flow. With this layout I can use RubyGems' libpath
>     specification parameter to add more/ and xore/ to the load path and
>     achieve my first goal while remaining backward compatible with 1.8.
>
>     The problem though, is that _manual_ installs have no means of
>     automatically adding to the load path. So those will need a special
>     file that would either have to be loaded at the start of ones app or
>     added to the RUBYOPT environment variable.
>
>     Is that extra hassle worth it?
>
>     And, with regard to require statements, how important is backward
>     compatibility to you?
>
>     Thanks,
>     T.
>
>     _______________________________________________
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>     http://rubyforge.org/mailman/listinfo/facets-universal
>     <http://rubyforge.org/mailman/listinfo/facets-universal>
>
>
>     --
>     O  trans
>     ^^ transfire at gmail.com <mailto:transfire at gmail.com>
>
>     If there's one thing I learned from watching sitcoms it's this:
>     whenever someone abruptly says "don't be silly", by all means be
>     silly!
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>
>
>
>
> -- 
> http://www.me.gr
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> http://blog.gmosx.com
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-- 
Arne Brasseur
http://www.arnebrasseur.net
arne at arnebrasseur.net

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