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There is no clear documentation of how to create API. Jesse suggested to adopt existing versioning-specification.html, extract information relevant for module writers and add additional stuff at: http://www.netbeans.org/servlets/ReadMsg?msgId=369970&listName=nbdev
The work has been started: http://openide.netbeans.org/tutorial/api-design.html
I have a suggestion. There is no documentation for system properties used in openapi and core. I think that there should be created document for these properties. A property can contain these information: name description using - loging, hack, factory,... scope - openide, core, platform, unix, widows, etc
Re. sys props - fine, but file separately, I don't think it has anything to do with this issue at all.
I am working on creating some infrastructure in nbbuild/javadoctools/ which should be useful generally for different modules (creating Javadoc, creating change lists, etc.). All this stuff should be documented alongside information on how to design and maintain the API code itself.
There is a progress in http://openide.netbeans.org/tutorial/api-design.html that makes me belive consistent version will be done during 4.0 release time.
Another interesting reading available at http://openide.netbeans.org/tutorial/api.html More or less I think the task can be claimed done. However I am open to suggestions how to improve the text.