Thanks mike. We need to improve and build tools to help us controling changes. I can tell you that merging fixes of parts you believe you know is difficult so when you do not known this is terrible. Especially since I care not damaging the system.
Stef
On 11 juil. 06, at 09:19, Michael Rueger wrote:
True. Though if few enough people are moving to new versions as they come out, it's not a very good sign.
That is true, but also depends on what "coming out" means. We usually don't consider moving to a new version until the final release is out. I, for my part, am more than willing to go through some major efforts to port stuff to a new version, once it's out. But, and that is the same in other systems as well, if you have a running system in maintenance mode, you don't port it anyways. Fortran IV anyone?
Regarding backward compatibility: many moons ago I had to port a system with about 100 packages to a new ObjectWorks version and used the backward compatibility packages to make my life easier. So I thought. I would have saved a lot time and effort and gained a much more robust system if I hadn't done it.
New major Squeak versions come out about once a year, the last two gave us m17n and now traits. I think it is well worth the change in APIs.
And if the people doing the harvesting work made mistakes in refactoring, who is the flawless developer who is going to throw the first stone?
But then, I'm just the engineer...
Michael