Bug 1803, Upcoming breaking changes for 4.10.0-beta1

[Daniel Morissette]

Tamas Szekeres wrote:
> 
>> I think you can safely hide the labelPathObj, that should not be
>> exposed. I think the others
>> should be immutable too (assuming I understand the problem correctly),
>> the question is how
>> many scripts will the change break and should backward compatability
>> breakage be limited
>> to major releases (e.g. 5.0).
>>
> 
> Those scripts are *erroneous* !  It would be desirable to force the
> users to put them into a good shape as soon as possible.
> 
> 

It seems that I should take position as release manager but 
unfortunately I do not know or use SWIG MapScript much so I have to rely 
on those who know to make an opinion on whether the current stuff is 
dangerous enough to warrant breaking a few scripts with 4.10.

Based on the understanding I have of the problem from reading this 
thread and previous discussions, it seems to me that if those scripts 
are doing something that is just waiting to bomb then changing SWIG 
MapScript in v4.10 to make those object references immutable is not a 
backwards compatibility issue, it is a bugfix and a service we are 
making to those users by forcing them to fix their scripts... and in the 
end their apps will just be more robust.

The real question that I would throw at the SWIG MapScript experts is: 
"Is the practice of overwriting those object references really dangerous 
or not?"

If the answer is yes then I think that solves the question and we need 
to apply the fix and force users to fix their scripts.

If there are object references that can safely be overwritten (such as 
colorObj) then my opinion is that we should not touch them in 4.10.

Daniel
-- 
Daniel Morissette
http://www.mapgears.com/