Re: [Tsp-devel] Use of opaque types

[Stephane GALLES]

Eric Noulard wrote:
> 2007/3/31, Robert de Vries <address@hidden>:
>> I see that the developers have used opaque types to hide the
>> implementation
>> of the structures from the end users.
>> A typical example is this:
>>
>>  /** Opaque handle type for provider */
>>  typedef  void* TSP_provider_t;
> 
> [...]
> 
>>
>> The problem I currently see as that with the current scheme of opaque
>> types
>> you not only hide the type, but also the type information, and that is
>> not
>> so good.
> 
> Yes your are right.
> Stephane (GALLES) did this :))
> I let him explain why with more detail.
> 
> I think we was "only wanting" to ease future changes,
> The fact is it has been more painful that useful.
> We discovered those drawbacks during our 5 years of TSP usage.
> 
> The initial TSP base code (src/core mainly) was done in 2002
> and we discovered from time to time that the code needs
> to be refactored and some parts have already been
> almost fully rewritten.
> 
> We should make changes smoothly
> in order to keep backward compatibility
> and your suggestion is a good one.
> 
> 
Yes, this turned out to be a bad idea. I started to code the
prototype with opaque types because I wanted the pointers
to looks like handlers.

This definitely was a typical premature optimisation of the API
that was not justified by any functionnal need.

I agree, this should be modified.

Stephane.