[Haskell-cafe] Proposal: remove "Stability" from haddock documentation on hackage

[James Cook]

On Jun 7, 2011, at 10:17 AM, Christopher Done wrote:

> On 7 June 2011 15:05, James Cook <mokus at deepbondi.net> wrote:
> It's good, in my opinion, to be able to state succinctly in a  
> standardized way that, although it does something now, what the code  
> does and how it does it are probably going to change in the future.
>
> I think no one really updates this field and it's a human factor  
> that could otherwise be generated by Hackage reliably. I'm using  
> many packages that are "experimental" or "unstable" that've been  
> stable for a year or more. The field is mostly useless to me. The  
> stability of a package can be judged based on how often the versions  
> bump up based on the PVP and/or the exports of the package change,  
> that is something Hackage could trivially do. Agreed, the naming is  
> also ambiguous, “API stability” seems more straight-forward.

I can't speak for anyone besides myself, but I do update it and its  
value is determined, for me, in a way that could never be automated.   
When I mark a package provisional or experimental, I am saying that I  
am not convinced that the API I've created is the best one I can come  
up with, and often I have specific plans to ("when I get around to  
it") change it.  It is an indication of intent for, not history of,  
change.  Similarly, when I do reach a design that I'm satisfied with,  
I change the stability field.  But an automated decision system has no  
conceivable way of knowing that the major change I just made will be  
the last major change.

-- James

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