I've found that if you read any of the SqueakyPages on http://minnow.cc.gatech.edu/squeakpages.1 with an updated Squeak 2.3, you get loads of errors. "UpdatingStringMorph has been changed" then "ClockMorph" has been changed, then... On most of them, simply clicking the forward page button once gets you to the page you want, but not all of them. We're finding similar problems on our SqueakyPages + Swiki project (MuSwiki). One of us playing with MuSwiki using an old image dragged something onto the front page, now no one can read the front page in a newer image without trying to invent a conversion method.
While I do understand that backward compatibility is a pink plane issue, this is going to be a problem for those of us trying to use SqueakyPages and the like in groups or in experiments, at least in the short term with rapidly changing code bases. Our current solution is to make sure that everyone has the exact same image, but I'd like to find a more flexible solution. Some that I'm considering and would like comments on:
- Is there some kind of default behavior for SmartRefStream that we can define so that there's an option NOT to provide a conversion method?
- What about setting up an update server of some kind that can provide automatic conversion methods? (It's certain that you already have a network connection created if you're using MuSwikis or SqueakyPages that have incompatible content :-)
- Can we shift the burden to the author, somehow? "That object that you're now adding has been changed since the last version. Please provide a conversion method for older images." Or maybe to the developer of new objects?
Thanks for any suggestions! Mark
-------------------------- Mark Guzdial : Georgia Tech : College of Computing : Atlanta, GA 30332-0280 (404) 894-5618 : Fax (404) 894-0673 : guzdial@cc.gatech.edu http://www.cc.gatech.edu/gvu/people/Faculty/Mark.Guzdial.html
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