Re: experimental features?
| From: | Greg Beaver | Date: | Wed, 12 Jul 2006 23:48:37 +0000 |
| Subject: | Re: experimental features? | ||
| References: | 1 | Groups: | php.pear.dev |
| Request: | Send a blank email to pear-dev+get-43459@lists.php.net to get a copy of this message | ||
Lukas Smith wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I am wondering how I should deal with new experimental features in MDB2?
> Am I allowed to mark a feature as experimental in the phpdoc comments
> and the changelog? In which case I am allowed to later change the API,
> eventhough the feature was released as part of a stable version?
This is a *perfect* example of why documentation is so important and
powerful. People can tell that by using a feature, it is not stable
even though the rest of the package is stable, and yes, this means that
you are free to change it. Once something is documented as stable, it
can't be broken.
This also implies that any package with a "stable" state that doesn't
have a documented API is in fact unstable because no API is defined at
all and is the reason why we have a major problem when this occurs in PEAR.
OK, I'm off my soapbox now.
Greg