Date: Tue, 04 Jun 2002 16:49:32 -0700 From: Terry Lambert <tlambert2@mindspring.com> To: Garance A Drosihn <drosih@rpi.edu> Cc: Brian Somers <brian@Awfulhak.org>, bakul@bitblocks.com, arch@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Avoiding unnecessary breakage (was Re: Removing wait union) Message-ID: <3CFD520C.38E2B992@mindspring.com> References: <200206041752.NAA08182@rodney.cnchost.com> <p05111724b922b2b4d44b@[128.113.24.47]> <20020604222022.6f935871.brian@Awfulhak.org> <p05111725b922efb11f6f@[128.113.24.47]>
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
Garance A Drosihn wrote: > At 10:20 PM +0100 6/4/02, Brian Somers wrote: > >Many software vendors would say that a published interface > >can only be removed after two major releases of the software. > >[...] > > > >Personally, I think FreeBSD should adopt such a strategy. > > Note that there *is* some attempt to do that, for many of the > changes we do. That effort, when it happens, still does not > protect us from annoying people with "disruptive" changes. Personally, I am all for disruptive changes, if they represent progress toward an agreed upon goal. > Note, for instance, that the issue which triggered this thread > was the removal of 'union wait'. Actually, it was the *proposal* to remove "union wait" that was the trigger. It was an entre into the larger issue of the acceptability of interface changes without "enviornmental impact statements". > it seems like 'union wait' has been depreciated since 1994! It has not been deprecated in the same way that "malloc.h" and "struct.h" and "values.h" have been deprecated. The deprecation has been comparatively very silent. > And yet here we have people all a flutter about how we are > making an incompatible change and we might be breaking ports. I picked the subject carefully: "Avoiding unnecessary breakage". As I said above: Personally, I am all for disruptive changes, if they represent progress toward an agreed upon goal. In other words "Embrace necessary breakage". > So, in short (who? me? short?), I think there are changes where > FreeBSD does a good job at trying to soften the transition -- > and that we do not give ourselves enough credit when we do that. > At the same time, there are other changes which are more abrupt, > but sometimes the abrupt change is done because mapping a smooth > transition will require a great deal more work. And with a > volunteer group, it isn't always easy to find people who are > willing to do that extra work. Historically, this has been David Greenman's job, as Architect. When David efectively deactivated himself, as outside events ate more and more of his time, the project has suffered. I don't think there is a simple fix; maybe I'm wrong: I'd like to be, in this case. Raising awareness is short-term helpful: I think there are a lot more people who are now considering the larger consequences of the changes they would like to make. On the other hand, I have yet to see one case of an epidemic that was cured solely by way of better education. -- Terry To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-arch" in the body of the message
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?3CFD520C.38E2B992>