Client API philosophy

[Christopher James Halse Rogers]

Hey all.

We're getting into the meaty bit of client API support I thought I'd 
write some things about API design philosophy to see if they're 
controversial.

*) An API with lots of functions that do one thing each is simpler than 
an API with few functions that do different things depending on other 
state.

*) A function with unclear semantics is harmful

*) Mir will not have an external reference for window management 
policy. Window management semantics will be associated with the API. 
There is no equivalent for 
http://standards.freedesktop.org/wm-spec/wm-spec-1.3.html outside the 
client API documentation.

*) The client API should be implementing policy, not mechanism.

*) Where state transitions are allowed, it should be possible to 
transition from one valid state to another valid state without 
temporarily being in an invalid state.

Some thoughts.