[Development] On Removing Public Undocumented/\internal APIs

[Thiago Macieira]

On Thursday, 10 July 2025 05:37:47 Pacific Daylight Time Marc Mutz via 
Development wrote:
> With the above rule, undocumented is equivalent to private. In particular,
> you have to assume that undocumented API changes at any time.
> 
> We now see how loud the outcry is when such changes, routinely done
> every week, happen to hit one of our own tools with a vocal developer base.
> 
> Do we still uphold the rule? I will bow to the decision, but either the
> change is allowed alongside all others, or none are. It can't be that
> we apply double standards.

On one hand, I will uphold your right (and mine) to rename any private API 
without needing to deal with users. I have myself intentionally broken code 
that violated use of private if I didn't think they were right to use it in 
the first place. There's little need to justify the change.

On the other, the use of private API may be justified in some cases. It might 
indicate a lack of a proper, public API and we should take note.

In this particular case, I thought the original change was gratuitous but 
didn't need much further thought, even though it caused a build conflict in an 
upcoming change of mine too. And renaming it back is likewise gratuitous: I 
did it because it was easier to fix *my* own build.

-- 
Thiago Macieira - thiago.macieira (AT) intel.com
  Principal Engineer - Intel Platform & System Engineering
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