public vs. private

[Mike A. Harris]

On Tue, 1 Feb 2005, Alan Coopersmith wrote:

>Daniel Stone wrote:
>> The rationale is simple: if another library is using it, it is not
>> private API, no matter how many underscores you put in front of the
>> symbol, and no matter that you put a comment saying 'this is private
>> API'.  It's simply not.
>
>In a world where both libraries always come from the same source and
>are always updated together, why not?   Of course, this is just one of
>the many things the X source has always done that modularization will
>break, but such is the madness we're heading towards.

I'd have to disagree with this statement.  A well designed API 
should have documented public interfaces, and private internal 
interfaces that aren't used by anything except the internal code 
that they're intended for.  If internal symbols must be used by 
some other API implementation, or are of a large enough benefit 
to another API, then perhaps they _should_ be public altogether.

The public/private distinction is important IMHO.  It shouldn't 
matter wether something comes with X and is using an API entry 
point, or wether it comes with X and is using an entry point 
IMHO.

There may be legacy behind the way X does things now, but this is
hideous, and I definitely am in agreement with Daniel on that
point, as I did not object to the change that was made, rather I
objected to the fact that it was made without any prior public 
discussion, which I feel is really important to the success of 
the project.

It's nice to see such changes discussed ahead of time because 
voluntary peer-review is always a good thing, and people often 
have alternative suggestions, or bring points forth that others 
might not have considered.  It's also good to see things 
discussed ahead of time, so people can see the 
rationale/justification for a change, and know that there 
actually was one.



-- 
Mike A. Harris, Systems Engineer - X11 Development team, Red Hat Canada, Ltd.

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