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I think the way RPG does it is far more valuable than the way the API
docs work.
The API docs say "introduced in v3r2" (or whatever) which tells you when
the API first became available. Totally useless for anything except
"fun API trivia parties".
I won't know if my code works at a given release, because there are
umpteen bazillion options on each API, and it doesn't tell me when each
option was added, when each format was added, when each field in the
resulting data structure was added, etc. All it tells me is when the
API itself was first introduced. Okay, "totally usless" might be an
exaggeration, but it's not enough information for me to know whether my
program will work on an older release.
I know that some people are reading this going "release info in a manual
isn't a substitute for testing your code". And I agree with respect to
commercial software development.
But every "tip" I post in a magazine or newsletter, every article I
write, I get e-mails asking me "which release will this work at?" And
even nasty messages saying "ALWAYS POST THE RELEASE, JERK!" And I
really have no way to find out what release something will work on...
I can tell them "I tested it on v5r4, but earlier than that, I don't
know..." But they never seem satisfied with that type of answer.
With the RPG docs, if I'm willing to invest enough time, I can usually
figure out which release it'll work on. (Plus, the options to compile
for previous releases help a lot.)
But with APIs I have no chance whatsoever.
On 3/16/2010 11:11 AM, Vern Hamberg wrote:
The "Since" kind of thing would be great - most of the API documentation
has something similar, an "introduced in" comment, which is very helpful.
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