Re: Preparation for use of XS paragraph formatting module

[Gavin Smith]

On 30 June 2015 at 11:48, Patrice Dumas <address@hidden> wrote:
> It seems to me to break the idea that user of an API should not care
> about implementation details.
This should still be the case, just that the API is different. It is
true that the API has changed as a result of implementation details.
It could be a problem if the API was uglier/more complicated because
of implementation details. In this case I'm not sure if there is any
way to say which API is nicer, other than taste. I could make
arguments why the new API is better in a couple of ways but it's
probably pointless.

In practical terms, the problem would be if someone else was using the
API, e.g. if they got the module via CPAN. If they were, I'd suggest
letting them continue to use the old version, assuming that it is
working fine with no significant bugs. Maintaining interface stability
for submodules of a program is a burden and can increase
implementation complexity, and may not be worth it in this case.