[Biojava-l] Possible minor change before 1.0

[Simon Brocklehurst]

Thomas Down wrote:

> On Fri, Jun 30, 2000 at 05:53:04PM +0100, Simon Brocklehurst wrote:
> >
> That's an alternative option.  I'm just slightly reluctant since
>   a) This is an interface, which potentially quite a lot of
>      people will eventually want to implement.

Sorry, I didn't notice that. In that case, you would actually have to
deprecate the entire interface, and have a new interface with preferred
method names etc. etc.

> b) We're still pre-1.0.  I'd quite like to see 1.0 land up with
>      a set of core interfaces which are as cruft-free as possible,
>      and those can then serve as a baseline for future evolution
>      (with maximum effort made towards compatibility).

I don't see that apis with deprecated class methods and interfaces are a
big deal - it's actually what you expect of Enterprise-class software.
You can set as an agressive time-scale as you like for removing the
cruft.   The cool thing with Java is that the cruft doesn't have to stay
there forever because it's easy to document when you're going to remove
it, and the compiler throws warnings etc.

Having said that, my suggestion for deprecation is just an idea.  I do
think it's important to at least worry a bit about breaking people's
code, even at this early stage.

Simon
--
Simon M. Brocklehurst, Ph.D.
Head of Bioinformatics & Advanced IS
Cambridge Antibody Technology
The Science Park, Melbourn, Cambridgeshire, UK
http://www.CambridgeAntibody.com/
mailto:simon.brocklehurst@CambridgeAntibody.com