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From: Filip Maj <fil@adobe.com>
To: "callback-dev@incubator.apache.org" <callback-dev@incubator.apache.org>
Date: Tue, 10 Jul 2012 11:19:26 -0700
Subject: Re: [iOS] Postponement of ARC support in 2.0
Thread-Topic: [iOS] Postponement of ARC support in 2.0
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I defer to both Shaz and Becky's wisdom when it comes to iOS stuff.

ARC switchover will break plugins. This is a given. Don't think this
should be a concern in terms of holding us back. It's going to happen at
some point!

Timing is an interesting question that keeps coming back up, tying back to
our deprecation policy and our versioning approach. If we are going with
our current deprecation policy (time-based, 6 months or so), then this is
at odds with the combination of a) our release cadence and b) users'
expectation of semantic version, I.e. Breaking changes landing in major
revisions. If we release a point revision every month, this means we have
(worst case) 10 (or 12, depends on how many point revisions we have in a
major release) months between when we can land breaking changes. 6 month
dep policy vs. anywhere from 1 to 10 months of next major release =3D
something's gotta give.

On 7/10/12 7:34 AM, "Becky Gibson" <gibson.becky@gmail.com> wrote:

>I can see pushing off ARC for 2.0 due to the changes required for plugins.
> Although, if plugins are going to have to change significantly for 2.0 it
>might be better off to do all of the changes at once rather than later.
> But, I'm also willing to put off 2.0 rather than explicitly tying it to
>PhoneGap day.  I'd rather see a feature complete 2.0 than something that
>was hurried to make the date.
>
>I am a bit concerned about putting it off until the fall as I have already
>done a significant amount of work on this (
>https://github.com/becka11y/incubator-cordova-ios/tree/ARC) and keeping it
>in sync for several months will be tedious.  It was in sync with master as
>of late last week, I haven't had a chance to work on it this week.
>
>If we do decide to wait until the release of iOS 6 then I think we should
>seriously consider also only supporting iOS 5.0 and above.   There are
>still some quirks with iOS 4.2 support and ARC that could be avoided if we
>only suport 5.0 and above.   If we do still want to support 4.2 then I
>think we should convert to ARC sooner than the fall.
>
>-becky
>
>On Mon, Jul 9, 2012 at 2:34 PM, Shazron <shazron@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> "PhoneGap Day" (July 20) is fast approaching and that is coinciding
>> with the release of 2.0. ARC support is slated for 2.0.
>>
>> ARC (Automatic Reference Counting) is a huge change and I believe we
>> need more time to test and work out the kinks, which there will be
>> lots, guaranteed. Upgrade includes:
>>
>>     1. Upgrading their current project. Medium risk - this will
>> involve not using the .framework, but using the sub-project. We have
>> upgrade instructions already, just need to tweak it.
>>     2. Upgrading their plugins. High risk, since if plugins are NOT
>> ARC ready (conditional compilation pre-processor macros), they will
>> need to add a linker flag in their Build Phase for their plugin files.
>> This is where most things will go wrong.
>>
>> I propose postponing ARC support to a later release to coincide with
>> the release of iOS 6 by Apple (the Fall - most likely with the iPhone
>> 5 release), but in the meantime we communicate through blog posts and
>> such this upcoming change. Pushing this huge change for a significant
>> release (2.0) in this short time frame I don't believe is best for
>> devs using Cordova, not without a longer test period (this summer).
>>