[Bioperl-l] For CVS developers - potentialpitfallwith"returnundef"

[Sendu Bala]

Chris Fields wrote:
> 
> Sendu Bala wrote:
[snip]
>> users need to be able to rely on the docs. You can't turn around and say
>> "you've used this method for years, but now I'm changing how it works
>> because you might have used the method incorrectly". Ideally any code
> 
> Not what I did, BTW.
[snip]
>> * though if there isn't time/interest in changing the code, and the
>> method never worked as per the docs, then by all means change the docs
>> to avoid confusion - just don't change the docs on a method that worked
>> according to the docs, because then you can assume people use the method
>> and will be affected by the change
> 
> Again, didn't do that.

I'm very sorry that I allowed the ambiguity, but my comments were 
certainly not directed at your recent changes to Bio::Restriction::IO. 
In fact, I put in the above * comment to exclude your changes from my 
discussion; you changed the docs because the code never did what they 
said they did (the docs were bad). That's fine (good!). My comments were 
a general point, slightly directed at the idea of changing all the 
return undef;s - changing the code so that it no longer matches the docs 
of a previously working method. That's what I think is bad. Though in 
this particular case it shouldn't make any difference at all.