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Should you know who all your clients are? That seems to be a workaround for not having an adequate testing framework or a contract stating what your code will
by cwilkes 10y ago
Should you know who all your clients are? That seems to be a workaround for not having an adequate testing framework or a contract stating what your code will do. Do open source frameworks know everyone's code that is using it?
Plus you do have perfect knowledge if your CI tools builds everything on your commit. Which it will do anyway if you have a monorepo.
- robrenaud 10y ago> That seems to be a workaround for not having an adequate testing framework or a contract Sometimes you get that contract wrong, and you don't realize it until you've shipped it. If you want to evolve an API by introducing a breaking change, you can do it at Google. You just have to migrate the clients with the API change. It means your APIs can both improve and stay lean, without needing to carry around legacy cruft, which is great. It's not really an option in open source.
- cwilkes 10y agoThat's a good point about not carrying cruft forward. I've often seen on projects where there's crazy methods like sendEmailOn3rdBirthdayAfterFullMoon as someone somewhere needed it for a single project but who knows if it is still in use.