[LLVMdev] [RFC] Developer Policy for LLVM C API

[Sean Silva]

On Fri, Jul 17, 2015 at 3:41 PM, Eric Christopher <echristo at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Hi Juergen,
>
> I've actually got another, perhaps more radical, plan. Let's just get rid
> of the C API or move it to another project. This simplifies a lot of the
> plans here where people have too many different ideas of how the C API
> should work.
>
> At this point the people who want a stable C API per incremental version
> can do that and handle the overhead of porting themselves and the people
> that want a C API that just happens to be a C interface can have a wrapper
> (or SWIG or whatever they want).
>
> I realize it's radical, but it seems that there are so many different
> wants for C API here that solving everyone's problems or wants is going to
> be impossible.
>

This might backfire if this results in a much better tested interface
between the C++ and C API implementation, such that we will actually get
red bots when we "break the C API" and be forced to fix it.

-- Sean Silva


>
> -eric
>
> On Fri, Jul 17, 2015 at 12:39 PM Juergen Ributzka <juergen at apple.com>
> wrote:
>
>> Hi @ll,
>>
>> a few of us had recently a discussion about how to manage the C API and
>> possible policies regarding addition, maintenance, deprecation, and removal
>> of API.
>>
>> Even thought there is a strong agreement in the community that we
>> shouldn't break released C API and should be backwards compatible, there
>> doesn’t seem to be a developer policy that backs that up. This is something
>> we should fix.
>>
>> I was wondering what the interested parties think of the current approach
>> and what could/should we improve to make the use and maintenance of the C
>> API easier for users and the developers alike.
>>
>> I was hoping we could also introduce a process that allows the removal of
>> an API after it has been deprecated for a whole release and the release
>> notes stated that it will be removed.
>>
>> Thoughts? Comments?
>>
>> Cheers,
>> Juergen
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