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

[Mateusz Loskot]

/topic changed
/cc geos-devel

On 30 September 2017 at 20:47, Greg Troxel <gdt at lexort.com> wrote:
> Mateusz Loskot <mateusz at loskot.net> writes:
>
>>> There isn't agreement about whether it is a bug for packages to use the
>>> GEOS C++ API.  If it really is a bug, GEOS is buggy for installing the
>>> headers.
>>
>> Please, can we stop this heresy?
>> I'm tired of explaining GEOS C++ API status.
>
> So do you agree with this, taken from the geos README (in 3.6.2):
>
>   ### Using the C++ interface (discouraged)
>
>   NB: The C++ interface should not be used directly; the GEOS project
>   views it as a bug for another program to use the C++ interface or even
>   to directly link against the C++ library.
> [...]
>
> Or do you think something else?

Greg,

No, I don't agree with this.

Moreover, this paragraph has no rights to be there or in any official
GEOS writing.
I'm very surprised Sandro allowed it in - I assume a merge in rush.

It sneaked in (unnoticed) via [1] as follow-up to this thread [2] on geos-devel
which had not received any response declaring C++ API as deprecated
or even no response that uses word 'deprecate'.
Sandro clearly stated, C++ API users are warned [3].

Five years later, I answered the same question [4]:
"GEOS C++ API is not an internal API, but a public yet supported API
offered by GEOS."
and Sandro, as the project leader, had not arrived with any corrections.

Finally, even if GEOS C++ API was/is marked as deprecated, then I ask
where is the RFC, where is the PSC voting the motion,
where is the public announcement?


> It genuinely seems to me that there are multiple opinions out there.

It is not a matter of an opinion, but a fact.


[1] https://trac.osgeo.org/geos/ticket/553
[2] https://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/geos-devel/2017-January/007652.html
[3] https://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/geos-devel/2012-June/005861.html
[4] https://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/geos-devel/2017-January/007653.html

Best regards,
-- 
Mateusz Loskot, http://mateusz.loskot.net