Consider renaming Link#context -> Link#spanContext

[aabmass]

Span#context was renamed in #45. For consistency, it would be nice if link did the same.

opentelemetry-js-api/src/trace/link.ts

Line 37 in 9b3f9c7

context: SpanContext;

This is a minor ask – if we don't want to create more API churn this can be closed 🙂

[dyladan]

This will not make it into the 1.0 release. We can add it after 1.0 as a minor addition and mark the previous property as deprecated.

[Flarna]

Is there already a deprecation workflow defined?
For example node.js has 3 types of deprecations where doc deprecated is the only one which is not semver major.

[dyladan]

The spec versioning doc has only made affordances for deprecating whole signals, not individual API methods and properties.

I will open a PR with an official deprecation strategy along these lines:

1. Add @deprecated tsdoc flag with a note pointing to the new function or some upgrade strategy if applicable.
2. In the next major release, all previously @deprecated functions are removed. This will likely be much later.

[Flarna]

2\. In the next major release, all previously `@deprecated` functions are removed. This will likely be much later.

Maybe we should add also a minimum timeframe for removing, or use a whole major cycle. This may be terrible long as there is no release plan for next majors as far as I know.
Currently a new major seems to be in the far future. But with this proposal it would be allowed to add an @deprecated label a few days before a new major is created where the API is then gone.

[dyladan]

Good suggestion. I think at least a whole major cycle is likely to be extremely long. How about next major release unless the release happens within 6 months of deprecation, else the removal must wait for the next major release after that.

[dyladan]

I would also say introducing a @deprecated flag is a semver-minor change, not patch, and it must come along with a documented alternative solution.

[dyladan]

This rename is a breaking change and I don't see a strong benefit to deprecate the old name. If someone thinks this is causing unnecessary confusion they can open an issue in https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-js as this package is moving there.