Client API philosophy

[Daniel van Vugt]

Definitely controversial; factually false or easily arguable.

Sounds like a response to one of my merge proposals. So please put 
arguments in the code reviews...


On 10/11/14 10:48, Christopher James Halse Rogers wrote:
> 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.
>
>