New SqueakMap on the air... and we got problems Houston!

Andreas Raab andreas.raab at gmx.de
Wed Apr 5 09:30:21 UTC 2006


goran at krampe.se wrote:
> Now... what do you *mean* with "being able to read *new* versions of the
> map into *old* versions of the code"?

It simply means that older versions of the client are capable of dealing 
with newer data sets coming from the server, so that the clients don't 
need to be updated in sync with the server. There are many good reasons 
for this; the most important one being that people like to be able to 
decide when they want to upgrade instead of being forced to.

> IMHO that is... not possible. :) Unless we are talking of simple
> behavior changes and no structural changes and that those behavioral
> changes "aren't important".

Oh, it's perfectly possible. All it means is that the server sends 
enough information so that older clients know how to make sense of it 
(within reason; unsupported features are still unsupported features) and 
that the clients *expect* to see information that they don't know how to 
make sense of (e.g., they need to be designed to be robust in the face 
of future changes). There is nothing magical about it.

Cheers,
   - Andreas



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