[Mono-docs-list] The future of monodoc.dll

[Jonathan Pryor]

One of the things I'd like to do before the Mono 2.0 release is migrate
monodoc.dll to use C# 2.0 features such as generics in the public API.
For example, instead of Monodoc.Node.Nodes being an ArrayList, it should
be an IEnumerable<Node> or IList<Node>, and Monodoc.Node should
implement IComparable<Node>, etc.

However, I'm not sure that this can actually be done, as monodoc.dll is
installed into the GAC, and such an API change would break any existing
clients on upgrade.

Consequently, I thought I'd throw out another idea: #ifs and changing
the assembly name.

Instead of building just monodoc.dll, we could build both monodoc.dll
and a Mono.Documentation.dll.  monodoc.dll would remain .NET 1.0
compatible, Mono.Documentation.dll would be for .NET 2.0, and we could
use #if's to keep the two separate:

        #if NET_2_0
        using NodeList = System.Collections.Generic.IList<Mono.Documentation.Node>;
        #else
        using NodeList = System.Collections.ArrayList;
        #endif
        
        public class Node : IComparable
        #if NET_2_0
          , IComparable<Node>
        #endif
        {
                public NodeList Nodes {...}
        }

This is similar/identical to what we do in mcs/class.

The alternatives are to:

1. Keep monodoc.dll as .NET 1.0 only -- no generics, etc.

2. Migrate monodoc.dll to .NET 2.0, and change the assembly version
number.  Problem is that the 1.0 monodoc.dll couldn't be built anymore
without using e.g. the monodoc-1.9.tar.gz file.

3. Keep monodoc.dll, and use a different set of source files to build
the .NET 2.0 Mono.Documentation.dll.  Perhaps it could use the 1.0
monodoc.dll as part of its implementation...?

4. Something else?

Thoughts?
 - Jon