From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!.POSTED.blaine.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Richard Stallman Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Lisp Api and backward compatibility Date: Sat, 13 Apr 2019 21:18:57 -0400 Message-ID: References: Reply-To: rms@gnu.org Content-Type: text/plain; charset=Utf-8 Injection-Info: blaine.gmane.org; posting-host="blaine.gmane.org:195.159.176.226"; logging-data="201993"; mail-complaints-to="usenet@blaine.gmane.org" Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org To: Sameer Rahmani Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Sun Apr 14 03:32:39 2019 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([209.51.188.17]) by blaine.gmane.org with esmtps (TLS1.0:RSA_AES_256_CBC_SHA1:256) (Exim 4.89) (envelope-from ) id 1hFU0c-000qPs-VF for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Sun, 14 Apr 2019 03:32:39 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]:57939 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1hFU0b-00037V-V6 for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Sat, 13 Apr 2019 21:32:37 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([209.51.188.92]:38891) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1hFU0O-0002nU-GK for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 13 Apr 2019 21:32:25 -0400 Original-Received: from fencepost.gnu.org ([2001:470:142:3::e]:60485) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1hFTnP-0001qm-2m for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 13 Apr 2019 21:18:59 -0400 Original-Received: from rms by fencepost.gnu.org with local (Exim 4.82) (envelope-from ) id 1hFTnN-0006ZQ-VC; Sat, 13 Apr 2019 21:18:58 -0400 In-Reply-To: (message from Sameer Rahmani on Fri, 12 Apr 2019 21:09:54 +0100) X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 2.2.x-3.x [generic] X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.21 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: "Emacs-devel" Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:235414 Archived-At: [[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider ]]] [[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies, ]]] [[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]] > What should i consider before changing the signature of a function which > is part of the public api of a library ? should I add the new argument > as the last argument ? what do we usually do for backward compatibility ? Would it be possible to define a new function with a different name and leave the old function unchanged? -- Dr Richard Stallman President, Free Software Foundation (https://gnu.org, https://fsf.org) Internet Hall-of-Famer (https://internethalloffame.org)