10: Versioning
Abstract
This chapter deals with the important topic of change management and control. It begins by discussing the relevance of version numbers and introducing an example version application programming interface (API) to let clients query the current version and feature set for an API. The life cycle of a typical API is described, including prerelease, release, maintenance, completion, and deprecation. The various terms for backward and forward compatibility are then defined, including functional compatibility, source compatibility, and binary compatibility. Then it's shown how you can make changes to an API while maintaining backward compatibility, including API changes such as adding, changing, deprecating, and removing ...
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