[Engine-devel] the future of template cloning

[Itamar Heim]

On 01/18/2012 09:38 AM, Livnat Peer wrote:
> On 18/01/12 00:46, Itamar Heim wrote:
>> On 01/17/2012 06:35 PM, Livnat Peer wrote:
>> ...
>>
>>>> We can't remove cloneTemplate until it is removed from the UI or else we
>>>> will break functionality.  For now we are just going to ensure that it
>>>> works as it always has until the UI is ready to remove it.
>>>>
>>>
>>> If by ensure you mean you are going to do adjustments for the
>>> cloneTemplate code to work then it is not needed.
>>>
>>> You can either send a patch to disable/remove this button from the UI
>>> or synchronize your patch with a patch from the UI that removes this
>>> button.
>>>
>>> I don't like the approach of leaving the code because many times we end
>>> up with a code that is not used and not maintained.
>>
>> I don't think a patch which would make existing functionality disabled
>> is the way to go.
>> I expect a lot of times a new functionality will be added, and the old
>> one should be flagged deprecated with a comment as to why (or open a BZ
>> to self to clean it up),
>
> I don't expect that we'll remove functionality a lot of times, this was
> a gap in the API modeling that enabled us doing that.
>
> If i understand correctly then you expect to add the clone disk
> functionality to the UI before removing the clone template button.
> Let's assume this requires a rewrite of the command to work with the new
> DB schema, this would be a throw away code, should it be done? I think not.
>
> We have upstream releases which should be stable - preferably with no
> partial functionality, other than that there is a development going on
> in upstream and from time to time some of the functionality won't be
> fully ready, it does not mean the application is broken but a disabled
> button in the UI or something similar can be a valid state IMO.

I think the assumption is someone should always be able to take upstream 
HEAD and build/base a version on it, other than the formal versions.