DPC2019: Backwards Incompatible Tales - Marco Pivetta
"Backwards Incompatible Tales by Marco Pivetta
A long time ago, in a land far away, lived a software wizard that was capable of grand magic. They built gardens, libraries, temples, castles. They created life where there wasn’t, and cleared the path where it was unsafe.
And then they disappeared, and even though they left behind books and notes, none of their apprentices were able to learn the craft. Since then, nobody was able to use any of the tools of the great mage, and the creations kept working for only a few years, when finally even the last stone that was placed crumbled into sand.
Sounds familiar? Software often feels the same: we’re all magicians that force a piece of sand into semi-rational thought, but what will happen when everyone moves on, and nothing works as expected anymore?
This talk explores the problems that arise from breaking compatibility with existing tools, how to prevent those breakages from happening, and what to look for as a software maintainer.
While I cannot guarantee that you will build indestructible magical fortresses with my tips, I can at least help you make sure that your work will live on with other people picking it up, and hopefully appreciating the stability that you worked towards.
What you'll learn from this talk:
perceived stability from a consumer point of view
maintainability of code
when and why to introduce backwards incompatible (BC) breaks
what to do when an unexpected BC break is found
About Marco Pivetta
Marco is a consultant for Roave, a maintainer for Doctrine Project, a helper on ZendFramework, and overall very passionate about software development practices.
When he's not writing code for work, he does for open source, for fun and self-improvement.
This talk was given at the Dutch PHP Conference in 2019, organised and hosted by Ibuildings. Visit https://phpconference.nl or https://www.ibuildings.nl for more information."