backwards compatibility (was Re: Tweak mainstream in Squeak)

Michael Rueger m.rueger at acm.org
Tue Jul 11 07:19:40 UTC 2006


>> 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




More information about the Squeak-dev mailing list