Timeline for Why do library developers deliberately break existing code?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
8 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Sep 5, 2021 at 14:31 | comment | added | Azuaron | @AlexanderThe1st There are, and many libraries do. And regardless of updates, you can always use old versions. But it's still the library's consumers' responsibility to know any published release plans, to upgrade instead of demanding minor updates on ancient versions, and to stick to LTS versions if they want LTS support instead of demanding non-LTS versions get LTS support. And, if you're worried that a library's major release is going to have such giant problems that another major release will be required to fix those problems, you should probably stop using such an unstable library. | |
| Sep 5, 2021 at 10:12 | comment | added | Alexander The 1st | @Azuaron: There are legitimate reasons to support older versions for at least a very long time - I would question whether Python's approach is supporting the old version forever, as in some cases, its that libraries that people use haven't yet upgraded to the newer version, or are experiencing instability in the newer versions. While that's true, there's no incentive to update until those downstream issues are fixed. And hesitancy is involved in case 2.x -> 3.x leads to an immediate jump a few months later to 3.x -> 4.x due to breaking changes required to correct defects. | |
| Sep 4, 2021 at 15:49 | comment | added | Džuris | @EdwardFalk as long as it's OS, there is no dropping. What was made remains available and usable forever. Of course, people that put out free libraries are not obliged to keep work on some legacy version because you want new features there :) | |
| Sep 4, 2021 at 10:38 | comment | added | Azuaron | @EdwardFalk Especially for major libraries that you depend on, you are responsible for knowing their published release plans. For instance, you should know that Java has LTS versions and non-LTS versions, and non-LTS versions will not be supported after the next release. If you need LTS support, use an LTS version. Personally, I'd hate if more languages/libraries took the Python approach of "support the old version forever because people can't be asked to upgrade, splitting the community as people continue to make new code on the old version". Either upgrade, or accept you don't get updates. | |
| Sep 4, 2021 at 6:51 | comment | added | Edward Falk | What infuriates me is that they then drop the old library. "Ok, now that GTK2 is out, no need to ship GTK+ any more". Or "Now that Java16 is out, no need to ship Java15 any more" — yes, there bloody well is; our build system won't work with Java16. | |
| Sep 3, 2021 at 7:42 | comment | added | Jan 'splite' K. | Btw, "Major is going to break things" (& Minor is adding new things but backward compatible and Patch is just bugfix) is called Semantic Versioning | |
| Sep 2, 2021 at 18:59 | comment | added | JimmyJames | Along the lines of what you've said here, the reality is that people make mistakes, including library authors. Once you've published a mistake like this in your API, it's difficult to resolve without breaking clients. A major release is when such things are addressed by responsible library authors. | |
| Sep 2, 2021 at 18:17 | history | answered | Karl Bielefeldt | CC BY-SA 4.0 |