Versioning pros
* Allows clients to avoid updating when the API changes.
* Reduces the cost of making a breaking change
* Organize feature changes - if the client asks for ver X, API guarantees
the capabilities of X and result in format X.
* Recommended API usage is shown as the latest version. If API decides to
change default behavior into optional, new developers will use the
recommended way from the start.
* No clutter with ever expanding list of additional parameters - with ver,
new parameters could replace old ones, or change their meaning, or be
removed completely without breaking any clients.
* Ability to obsolete capabilities in a structured way: MW supports API
requests with version X+, but will give standard warning for anything below
version Y. No need to parse warning messages to see if specific feature
change applies.
On Sat, Dec 22, 2012 at 9:13 AM, Brad Jorsch <bjorsch(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:
On Sat, Dec 22, 2012 at 8:54 AM, Yuri Astrakhan
<yuriastrakhan(a)gmail.com>
wrote:
Brad, I agree with the overall drawbacks of having a version system, but
the only alternative is to have a converting layer on top of the regular
API
that will change things on the fly if the request
had a different version
number. This would solve the hypothetical security issue - only one API
to
check, but will more likely cause stability
problems - it is much easier
to
mess up in the additional layer than in the
specific module that
understands
the change.
Please do expand on the list of pros.
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