Rewrite the "removing features" section, incorporating "Support Existing Content" from the HTTP Design Principles #588
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| This might require research, | ||
| for example by adding metrics to a popular user agent | ||
| and/or by [searching the HTTP Archive](https://har.fyi/guides/getting-started/). | ||
| Breaking content is harmful, |
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It would be good to
- Make this a positive statement.
- Reference other things we've said about this general thing.
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| * Only a tiny amount of existing content depend on the feature or behavior. | ||
| * Only a tiny number of people see that content. | ||
| * The content only appears in test cases or examples. | ||
| * The content is currently broken in most recent popular user agents. |
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Does it matter if the user agent is popular if the change already affects most user agents?
Edit: I misread, but I think it's worth being specific about what "popular" means here
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I added more detail about why it matters that the other UAs are popular: it makes it more likely that they would have received bug reports if anyone's relying on the content, and it means that if we're increasing interoperability, we're not breaking the dramatically larger number of users.
| Getting a single complaint is often a sign | ||
| of a much larger amount of hidden breakage. | ||
| * The benefit of breaking content is very large. | ||
| For example, removing old SSL and TLS versions breaks lots of content |
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| For example, removing old SSL and TLS versions breaks lots of content | |
| For example, removing old SSL and TLS versions breaks significant content |
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"Significant" invites a value judgement of how important the content is, while I was just trying to talk about the amount. We could use "many pages", I guess? But it's also an intentional choice to be somewhat informal here: we're trying to communicate, not impress people.
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In reality, it was neither. I'm sure that some of the people affected would disagree, but when we removed old versions, there simply wasn't that much use out there, at least proportional to other versions.
| For example, removing old SSL and TLS versions breaks lots of content | |
| For example, removing old SSL and TLS versions caused a number of sites to become unreachable |
…ing Content" from the HTTP Design Principles
Co-authored-by: Martin Thomson <[email protected]>
Co-authored-by: Martin Thomson <[email protected]>
Co-authored-by: Martin Thomson <[email protected]>
Co-authored-by: Sarven Capadisli <[email protected]>
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Co-authored-by: Sarven Capadisli <[email protected]>
Co-authored-by: Sarven Capadisli <[email protected]>
| Getting a single complaint is often a sign | ||
| of a much larger amount of hidden breakage. | ||
| * The benefit of breaking content is very large. | ||
| For example, removing old SSL and TLS versions breaks lots of content |
There was a problem hiding this comment.
"Significant" invites a value judgement of how important the content is, while I was just trying to talk about the amount. We could use "many pages", I guess? But it's also an intentional choice to be somewhat informal here: we're trying to communicate, not impress people.
| Gaining a good understanding might require research, | ||
| for example by adding metrics to a widely-used user agent | ||
| or by [searching the HTTP Archive](https://har.fyi/guides/getting-started/). | ||
| Breaking content harms users, |
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Re @martinthomson's comment, I think we might have a higher-level principle that "The web is stable", which can cover both keeping backward compatibility and ensuring some forward compatibility. I'm inclined to try to merge this change, and then add that one, but I could reverse it if folks prefer.
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I think you're fine to commit this first.
| Gaining a good understanding might require research, | ||
| for example by adding metrics to a widely-used user agent | ||
| or by [searching the HTTP Archive](https://har.fyi/guides/getting-started/). | ||
| Breaking content harms users, |
There was a problem hiding this comment.
I think you're fine to commit this first.
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Fixes #174.
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