[ros-dev] Re: Undocumented APIs

[mf]

Hi,

Andrew "Silver Blade" Greenwood wrote:
> If that's the general procedure we are to take, then **I don't see what 
> the problem is**.

The problem is, that the developer that wants to implement the API needs 
to *prove* that there is some application/driver out there using it. As 
I said in the IRC channel yesterday, the fact that someone wants to 
invest his/her time into implementing it is reason enough to allow 
implementation. That doesn't mean the implementation shouldn't be 
clean-room. Following from that, Steven's proposition sounds a lot 
better than Casper's, and it is one I can agree with. If there is no 
documentation, make some, by having someone disassemble it and document 
his/her findings in a file outlining the API. This was the whole 
"working in pairs" thing we agreed upon in the meeting. Just to clarify 
slightly, this means nothing changes in our design goals or 
implementation, we just need to document what we disassemble, and the 
person doing the disassembling can't do the implementation. Simple as 
that. No other harm done.
So, imho all the folds are now ironed out of the proposition, and on to 
vote it is!

Cheers,
mf