2009/6/29 Stéphane Rollandin lecteur@zogotounga.net:
So what? Some people keep using even older images.
well thank you for driving me out. I guesss I just have to shut up now.
Don't be so dramatic, Stéphane. Your opinion is all right and worth one voice. As everybody else here. =)
There are frustrations in regard to the constraint of backward compatibility. It is greatly increased by the fact that we have limited set of test cases to ensure our changes don't break anything. And we don't have an official API to lean on as well...
Moreover, the community should ask the question on how important the compatibility is (specifics in term of qualification and quantification)? We could certainly define levels of compatibility, set for each (major?) component. What has to be absolutely kept? What can be ditched?
To simply state that it will break one's code is perhaps not enough when a growing frustration in the community shows up. We should definitively understand better what kind of need in terms of compatibility our community has.
Could also this compatibility be simulated? Can we use text transformation rules to update the code and thus ensure an easy migration to newer image? Etc.
Ian.