Re^2: Update these modules if installed?

I am talking about API in a more general sense instead of the more restricted sense of calling a module's functions/methods or variables. In the Log::ger case, a plugin returns a hash of hooks with names that are agreed upon. This is not enforced "mechanically", which can be a bad design choice in itself but I am choosing minimalism over stricture.

Anyway, making the plugin depends explicitly to Log::ger does not solve my problem. If Log::ger changes in a backward-incompatible way, I *will* break installed plugins unless clients choose to update the plugins (the dependants).

Comment on Re^2: Update these modules if installed?

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Re^3: Update these modules if installed? by stevieb (Canon) on Mar 08, 2020 at 15:12 UTC
Why not just introduce some code in your distribution that can catch the plugins doing things the old, broken way, and gracefully throw a notice to the user and exit, with the notice advising them to upgrade the broken plugin (`caller()` could potentially be used to get the plugin name)? Not ideal, but significantly better than forcing an upgrade of user installed distributions.	[reply] [d/l]
Re^4: Update these modules if installed? by perlancar (Hermit) on Mar 08, 2020 at 16:03 UTC
Yes, I did this to some extent, but there are still some scenarios where things could break. Your post reminds me that in other frameworks that I wrote, I do introduce API/metadata versioning and throw an exception whenever a plugin follows an older version which I no longer want to support. I might apply that to Log::ger too, thanks.	[reply]
Re^3: Update these modules if installed? by LanX (Saint) on Mar 08, 2020 at 14:40 UTC
Thanks for the clarification, tho that's a bit over my head. Hope Syphilis approach helps. :) Cheers Rolf _{(addicted to the Perl Programming Language :) Wikisyntax for the Monastery}	[reply]
Re^4: Update these modules if installed? by perlancar (Hermit) on Mar 08, 2020 at 15:06 UTC
You're welcome. And thanks for the response nevertheless. It tells me that I haven't expressed myself well enough :-)	[reply]