Breaking changes and Flarum versioning

Staszek

Is next release going to break anything? If not, maybe call it beta8.2? It may be misleading, if you release beta9, that is going to be just bug fix release, fully compatible with beta8.1. All extensions will have to be updated again in this case, even if this update will only be update version in composer.json.

rob006

Since releases will be more frequent, can we switch to some sane versioning? pre-1.0 releases already implies that software is not stable and BC breaking changes are expected, there is no need to create monsters like 0.1.0-beta.8.1. It will be much easier to maintain composer's constraints in extensions if BC breaking changes will be released as 0.2.0, 0.3.0 etc - then extension may use ^0.1 as constraint and we can avoid upgrade hell after each release.

Franz

rob006 We plan to do so soon, but at this time every release breaks BC in some way, so it would be fairly pointless.

rob006

Franz but at this time every release breaks BC in some way

Well, this is terrible news for the entire ecosystem - BC break on every 1-2 months will make maintaining extensions and existing installations really annoying...

datitisev

rob006 It's beta software. Not stable. That's why the versioning is what it is.

Some extensions were able to work with some to no upgrades from beta 5 through beta 7, both beta 5 and beta 8 introduced breaking changes, for example.

Franz

rob006 Just because there are BC breaks doesn't mean every extension will break. Not at all. Beta.8 was an extreme outlier in that regard.

We're taking this freedom now so that we don't have to break BC so often when we reach 0.1.

rob006

datitisev It does not change the fact that versions like 0.1.0-beta.8.1 is rather exotic and smells "over-defensive" approach. Right now Flarum is working software with quite reach and living extensions ecosystem - releasing BC breaking release every month without any sane versioning system will definitely hurt existing community.

datitisev

rob006 releasing BC breaking release every month

Erm, beta 8 came well over a year after beta 7 was released, and beta 7 over half a year after beta 6 came out.
As Franz and I mentioned, some extensions do continue to work. Besides, us at ReFlar and Flagrow teamed up to bring FriendsOfFlarum, a group that updates abandoned extensions for the public.

rob006

Franz Just because there are BC breaks doesn't mean every extension will break. Not at all. Beta.8 was an extreme outlier in that regard.

That is a good reason to change current versioning - there should be some difference between releases that most likely does not break anything, and release that almost certainly break every single extension. 😃

rob006

datitisev Erm, beta 8 came well over a year after beta 7 was released, and beta 7 over half a year after beta 6 came out.
Beta 9 is scheduled about 2 months after releasing beta 8 and if I understand previous posts correctly, new releases should be more frequent than previously.

But the existing schedule was the main source of confusion - usually from 8th beta I would expect some final touch-ups and bugfixes, not completely rewriting of extensions API that takes one year - that fits more to next (unstable) major release - 0.2.0. I'm just feeling that the current versioning policy does not reflect current project state and its dynamic.

datitisev Besides, us at ReFlar and Flagrow teamed up to bring FriendsOfFlarum, a group that updates abandoned extensions for the public.

That's great, but since last 4-6 months I was unable to run composer update without spending hours on debugging each extension to detect which version is compatible with my forum and hardcoding exact versions as composer constraints - some extensions becomes beta 8 only, and there is no clear guideline how versioning policy for extension should look like and what constraints for flarum/core they should use. I know that this is beta, but with few BC rules and guideline for extensions you can avoid basically all problems with installing incompatible extensions - Composer will solve all of them. 🙂

Franz

rob006 there is no clear guideline how versioning policy for extension should look like and what constraints for flarum/core they should use. I know that this is beta, but with few BC rules and guideline for extensions you can avoid basically all problems with installing incompatible extensions - Composer will solve all of them.

We were actually recently discussing better documentation of these constraints, and we are working on improving them. Please leave your feedback on this pull request.