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Re: [platform-dev] Recent API Removal breaks clients


On Thu, Sep 17, 2020 at 10:06 PM Wim Jongman <wim.jongman@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Hi,

jface.util.Assert was removed as well as platform.getJobManager.

I love the cleanup but I hate the panic that this causes. I take care of WindowBuilder and Nebula releng. We do not build against the development version but against an older version. This is to protect us to not accidentally use a new API that is not compatible with the oldest Eclipse we support. This means that the build completes normally.

Should we not support older versions of Eclipse?

There is 2 years notice period so I would say do not support versions older than 2 years.
 

So now we have the removal of jface.util.Assert which breaks WindowBuilder. I did not see it because I did not use WB after Assert was removed only six weeks ago (over the holidays). Now the reports flow in because people are upgrading and we are no longer compatible with the latest eclipse.

I suggest adding three things to the API removal process.

1. The person that proposes the API change makes an impact analysis by searching all the Eclipse repositories, removal is abandoned if used > x%
2. Removal of API is sent to the mailing list of the project that uses the API so that we can fix things in time, especially when the project is in maintenance mode.

1. and 2. are not realistic if we go that path why don't we add Spring Tools or JBoss Tools which are one of the widely used plugins out there. Why not add Pydev too? Requiring to subscribe to project list to notify is a bit too much for me. There is a reason we have cross-project list. Effectively this proposal is to never ever change anything and let Eclipse Platform collapse under its own weight where we keep shipping multiple ways to do things - each with its own oddities.
 
3. API's are only removed before M1. This gives us some more time to catch and fix.

^ That one makes sense to me.
 

Cheers,

Wim

* As an added bonus I now also have to deal with the removal of platform.getJobManager that break the IBM rational plugins that we use for our product. Now I have to chase IBM to fix something, I'd rather be fighting windmills.



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--
Alexander Kurtakov
Red Hat Eclipse Team

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