724635 - Make api-utils/observer-service consistent with other event APIs

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Add-on SDK Graveyard :: General, defect, P2)

Description

[Irakli Gozalishvili [:irakli] [:gozala] [@gozala]]

At the moment observer-service module provides same API as any other event emitter with a difference that it does not implements event emitter API. We must make it consistent other event emitters to lower the cost of maintenance and learning curve:

https://github.com/mozilla/addon-sdk/blob/master/packages/api-utils/lib/observer-service.js

Comment 1

[Alexandre Poirot [:ochameau]]

There is a very subtle difference with this `target` object, right?

Again, I'm not against this improvement. I just have the same feeling than bug 724625. Even if it is an api-utils library, it may already be used by many addons.
And breaking APIs seems to go against Jetpack promises.
So even if we try to shout loud that low level API aren't frozen,
I'd really like to see deprecation for multiple releases before removal.

Otherwise, I'm really up for it!! 
Your overall goal to use common patterns can have a big impact of jetpack simplicity.

Comment 2

[Irakli Gozalishvili [:irakli] [:gozala] [@gozala]]

(In reply to Alexandre Poirot (:ochameau) from comment #1)
> There is a very subtle difference with this `target` object, right?

No need for target, there is Function.prototype.bind.
 

> Again, I'm not against this improvement. I just have the same feeling than
> bug 724625. Even if it is an api-utils library, it may already be used by
> many addons.
> And breaking APIs seems to go against Jetpack promises.
> So even if we try to shout loud that low level API aren't frozen,
> I'd really like to see deprecation for multiple releases before removal.
> 
> Otherwise, I'm really up for it!! 
> Your overall goal to use common patterns can have a big impact of jetpack
> simplicity.

I totally agree we'll implement it as an alternative module and make observer-service use it with a deprecation warnings.

Comment 3

[Irakli Gozalishvili [:irakli] [:gozala] [@gozala]]

Fixed by https://github.com/mozilla/addon-sdk/commit/d292d75edf1a6aa747bb531b9a72033889566f21