Move away from a stability index to a 'weather forecast' type system.

[GlenTiki]

Directly related to #1704, I think that this might be a good way to indicate breaking changes might be coming up soon. Eg, we might say the tracing api stuff is stormy, as it is under heavy development, (I think!), but a core component like buffer is 'clear skies' because we aren't expecting breaking changes and the only changes that could happen in the forecast is positive things.

We could slowly start rolling in 'weather warnings' for deprecating modules/things, and when the breaking changes are expected to arrive, that would be a 'thunder storm'.

This feels too wordsy for a system of current status, but it would mean we have more flexibility than "rate this out of x how stable it is!"

Feedback much appreciated! Obviously we would need lots of discussion on what the forecasts mean, and documenting it all for people to check out if they need to. We could possibly use another type of forecast system, but I don't know one that might fit, so suggestions would be cool there.

[Trott]

Do note that the stability index numbers are not arbitrary. They have specific meanings. See https://nodejs.org/api/documentation.html#documentation_stability_index. It's not "rate this out of x". It's precise.

It's not clear to me that saying "stormy" is an improvement over "stability index 0 (deprecated)". Maybe it is, but I think you'd need an awfully persuasive argument to convince people. Especially for people for whom English is not their primary language, a list of five or six descriptive phrases (e.g., "heavy storms", "storm clouds", "cloudy", "partially cloudy", "clear") might be less clear than simple integers.

It's possible that there is an issue of discoverability or clarity. For example, perhaps the descriptions in the stability index need more clarification and need to be put somewhere more prominent. (I'm not saying that's the case. Just raising it as a hypothetical possibility.)

[Fishrock123]

Features will no longer ship publicly in this way (especially in stable releases) while under development. Just a thought to consider.

[Fishrock123]

Also there isn't necessarily a good way to forecast whether certain v8-tied features may break in the future.

Move to close due to inactivity. :/ (Thanks though!)

[mikeal]

Are we agreed on removing them? I can send a patch that removes them if that is the consensus.

[Fishrock123]

No I don't think so, but I don't think a 'weather forecast' would really work out.

[GlenTiki]

Yeah, lets close this, as there wasn't an uptake from the community. :)

[mikeal]

IMO having them removed is a good first step. They are very confusing to new people.

[jasnell]

Closing due to lack of activity