[postgis-devel] [geos-devel] GEOS C++ API deprecated? (was: PostGIS 2.5 what should be minimum requirements?)

[Sebastiaan Couwenberg]

On 10/01/2017 10:05 PM, Mateusz Loskot wrote:
> On 1 October 2017 at 21:47, Sebastiaan Couwenberg <sebastic at xs4all.nl> wrote:
>> On 10/01/2017 09:33 PM, Mateusz Loskot wrote:
>>> Unless, Sandro, your aim is to eventually mark C++ API deprecated
>>> and stop installing C++ API libraries and headers.
>>>
>>> That will require RFC and that is what I'm debating about.
>>
>> To end this debate once and for all,
> 
> Mind you, that does not ends anything, it starts it.

Yes, you seem to want to keep this debate alive.

>> I'd love for the C++ API to be officially deprecated and no longer installed soon after.
> 
> As member of GEOS development team, I'm deeply concerned about
> taking such comments seriously, by rest of GEOS team.
> 
>> As long as libgeos is provided alongside libgeos_c, C++ projects will be tempted to
>> keep using it.
> 
> So what.

You don't seem to understand the pain it causes downstream.

>> And from my perspective as a package maintainer, I would
>> like for those projects to stop doing that and have them all use the C
>> API instead.
> 
> Just stop accepting such GEOS-based software for packaging
> and keep nagging authors of such projects to switch to GEOS C API,
> but do not delegate your problem to GEOS.

The projects in question have been nagged, but that doesn't solve the
issue. It did cause the libosmium & osm2pgsql authors to drop support
for GEOS. It did not convince the OSSIM developers to switch to the C API.

Not accepting such software for packaging is a disservice to our users
and hence undesirable. Packages are part of a larger ecosystem which is
affected by removals down the tree, e.g. the removal of OSSIM causes the
removal of OTB.

> It is not GEOS problem that someone uses GEOS C++ API.
> GEOS is C/C++ library.

It is however a problem that slows adoption of newer GEOS releases, and
by extension newer PostGIS releases when they depend on features in
those releases.

> Having said enough, I'm not going to participate in the debate any longer.
> 
> I only ask Sandro, as the GEOS leader/PSC member to answer one question:
> 
> Do you plan to practically deprecate GEOS C++ API and stop installing
> GEOS C++ headers?

Why do you care so much about the C++ API? What keeps you from using the
C API?

Kind Regards,

Bas

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