[mythtv] Services API for ChannelServices / Video Source

[Stuart Morgan]

On Friday, 1 November 2019 07:12:07 GMT Gary Buhrmaster wrote:
> On Thu, Oct 31, 2019 at 9:43 PM Klaas de Waal <klaas.de.waal at gmail.com> 
wrote:
> > I have committed support for the bouquet ID and the region ID in the
> > services API  but not yet tested anything.
> 
> I would hope the documentation will be updated.
> 
> And changes to the Services API brings up the
> regular repeated issue of versioning of the services
> API invokations when new required fields are added
> in order to support backwards compatibility for existing
> users of the API.  if the project wants to use the model
> of the API is not stable (and get over it), then versioning
> does not matter, but that also means the Services API
> should not be used outside of project provided scripts
> because they will break whenever in various ways.

The services API was intended to retain backwards compatibility at all times, 
although in the early days some breaking changes were necessary to bring the 
API endpoints into line with each other. It has repeatedly been stated that 
the Services API is the true public interface to the system and that third 
party software using the internal protocol should switch to it for this very 
reason.

As such changes which break compatibility would require a new endpoint to be 
created. Usually this is avoidable, especially when we're just talking about 
new parameters being added, since these can be made optional with sane default 
values.

A proper versioning system, where the client specifies the version they 
understand and requests are handled accordingly would be good to have.

--
Stuart Morgan