API Change - tidyReleaseDate()

Cross-posted to
 [1]: https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-htacg/
 [2]: https://sourceforge.net/p/tidy/mailman/tidy-develop
 [3]: https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/html-tidy/

Good day all,

This is a request for comments about the treatment of `tidyReleaseDate()`.

HTACG' current proposal and working branch currently is working on the
assumption that we will move to a semantic versioning system as a
replacement for a date-based version system. This has been implemented on
the working branch using `tidyLibraryVersion()` in the API. Our goal is the
first 5.0.0-rc.1 by February's end.

While we will deprecate `tidyReleaseDate()` it still has to return a valid
date as TidyLib users may be using it. Current development branch returns
Unix epoch time (1970/1/1), which we feel should be enough of an indicator
to users that the `tidyReleaseDate()` is no longer trustworthy.

I seek your opinions on whether you or anyone you are aware of:

- currently use `tidyReleaseDate()` in a manner that justifies its
continued existence and support?
- currently use it in a way that returning Unix epoch would break your
application?
- unwilling to make changes to your existing application to support the
transition to `tidyLibraryversion()`?
- have a better suggestion for a suitable return value during the
deprecation period?

Please comment to any of these lists, or alternative on the [issues
tracker][1].

Thank you.


References:
  [1]: https://github.com/htacg/tidy-html5/issues/148


--
---
Jim Derry
Clinton Township, MI, USA
Nanjing, Jiangsu, China PRC