[higgins-dev] adding args (extending APIs)

["Jim Sermersheim" <jimse@xxxxxxxxxx>]

So, this bug wants to make it possible for an IdAS consumer to specify whether attribute values (which are references) be auto-dereferenced when read.

I've identified a few methods where this behavior is applicable.  It's not hard to add another argument to those existing methods (but that would break anyone currently calling those methods).  It's also not hard to add overloaded versions of those methods.

But this kind of brings back the old topic of API extensibility.  Do we want to change or overload methods as we come up with new arguments/behaviors?  Or should we do something else (along the lines of what has been discussed at http://wiki.eclipse.org/IdAS_API_Extensibility)?

Jim