public/private/stable/unstable

[Robert Collins]

On Tue, 2008-08-26 at 17:11 -0500, John Arbash Meinel wrote:
> 
> 
> I know we are at a bit of a lack of having enough ways to decorate a
> symbol to
> indicate its public/private status versus its stable/unstable status.
> But
> generally we say that "public apis are stable and will be deprecated,
> etc." So
> I think making it "_log_adapters" is perfectly valid, as we aren't
> guaranteeing to plugins not to change the api without deprecating.

I'm getting pretty fed up with this. I'm getting reviews bounced for
using _, for not using _, for using things that are _ but it was used to
mean unsupported. I can't pick *any* consistent behaviour that doesn't
trigger a review bounce AFAICT. So I'm going on _ strike: I won't use a
leading _ again, regardless of privacy or supported ness until this mess
is fixed: THE BIKE SHED IS BLUE.

I'd like to know whether _ means
"private"
or 
"unsupported".

Can we PLEASE pick ONE, put it in HACKING, and not ever go around this
again.

And after that I never ever ever ever want a review that says FOO is|is
not BAR, give|remove the _, unless BAR matches the BAR we choose _ to
mean.

I am so over this.

And:
_ means *either* is fine, as long as no review ever says "dont use
symbol _GAM because its private" when the symbol is actually public but
unsupported. So choosing "means either" will cause reviewers to know
their symbols better, or cause them to stop commenting on usage of _
symbols.

-Rob
-- 
GPG key available at: <http://www.robertcollins.net/keys.txt>.
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