[Development] QML import versions

[Robin Burchell]

On Fri, Sep 18, 2015, at 05:12 PM, Nurmi J-P wrote:
> - QtQml 2.2
> - QtQml.Models 2.3 (++)
> - QtQuick 2.6 (++)
> - QtQuick.Particles 2.0
> - QtQuick.Controls 1.5 (++)
> - QtQuick.Layouts 1.3 (++)
> - QtQuick.Dialogs 1.2

You missed QtQuick.Window I think :)

... which brings me to this:

> Is this something that would be possible to implement already in Qt 5, or
> is this Qt 6 material? Does someone strongly oppose the idea?

I have some opposition to the idea because it entirely prevents us from
making changes if they are needed. An example of this came up just the
other day on IRC: Window{} has a number of major (or at least quite
irritating) flaws. A few of us were discussing whether/how it would be
possible to fix them in a QtQuick.Window 3.0, without breaking backwards
compatibility with older code, and without waiting for Qt 6.

> How often do we release new major versions of QML modules? I don't see why QML
> modules couldn't follow the same practices than the rest of Qt follows.

At present, we don't, but I think that's more down to the low amount of
activity happening outside the engine (at present) rather than the lack
of a _need_ to in some areas. Adopting this policy would mean there is
zero chance of these ever happening outside of major Qt releases, which
ties things to a much longer timeframe than "whenever we feel like
bumping the major version number".

To me, that feels like a pretty big loss, even if I can see the appeal
we get in having consistency. It also means we're bumping version
numbers for the sake of bumping version numbers in cases where there
really aren't any (or at least many) changes, in the case of e.g.
Particles, which is less of an issue, but still an issue.