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Re: A Peeve of Great Pettishnessby sfink (Deacon) |
on Oct 28, 2005 at 20:08 UTC ( [id://503757]=note: print w/replies, xml ) | Need Help?? |
I totally agree with at least the spirit of the rant, since it's been one of my pet peeves too. (And it enjoys an honored place on the hearth, not like those dirty little peeves about things that I kinda feel guilty for being annoyed at. They have to live in a hole in the cellar and eat the most rotten table scraps. I'm hoping the sump pump will get rid of them for me some day.)
The most common "standard" that people claim to support, but rarely really do, is:
Well, get over it. If it does something useful with a vaguely reasonable API, smack a 1.0 on it. Most CPAN authors spend quite a bit of time polishing things up before their first CPAN release, so calling it 0.1 is disingenuous. And even if you're hesitant about the API, well... you released it, right? So you're saying you'd like other people to try using it? Through the current API, however incomplete and ill-thought-out? Well, then, you must think that something can be accomplished through it, so why not bless it with a big "1.0" even though you're certain that you'll quickly have an interface change afterwards? If you realize that some part of the API is a huge mistake and should be done totally differently -- what's so bad about calling the next one 2.0? I've found that, as painful as the quick 1.0 -> 2.0 -> 3.0 -> 4.0 succession feels, it almost always slows down dramatically sooner than you expected from the initial phases. And if anyone's using it, you'll have to make enough fixes to produce 2.1, 2.2, 2.3, ..., and by the time you do the 3.0, it'll feel about right. The "release early, release often" argument is fine, and there really are cases where pre-1.0 versions are more appropriate. But how many projects/modules really have a community of developers or users before they're actually usable for anything? Not many. Users and developers only show up after you've demonstrated the promise with a sample app. Besides, users are more attracted to versions 1.0 and later, and you want users, right? Right? I work for Reactrix Systems, and am willing to admit it.
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