Software Mistakes and Tradeoffs

12 Managing versioning and compatibility

This chapter covers

• Thinking about versioning in the abstract
• Planning versioning strategies for libraries
• Designing APIs for evolution
• Working effectively with storage schemas

There are a few topics that are almost guaranteed to cause groans from experienced engineers. If you bring up localization, merge conflicts, or time zones in conversation, be prepared for a frosty reception. Versioning falls into that category too. It’s a fact of life, but many of us put off working out how we’ll handle it for far too long—partly because it can feel like a waste of time. You’ll hear very few positive comments when a product, library or API gets versioning right, but it can be a major source of complaints when ...