[Zope3-dev] A thought on backward compatibility and minimum versions

[Dieter Maurer]

Jim Fulton wrote at 2007-5-31 10:12 -0400:
>
>In thinking about how we might specify that we want to depend on  
>major versions but sometimes need to specify minimum versions, the  
>following occurred to me:
>
>- Suppose that we always had access to the latest released version,
>
>- Suppose that, within a major release, all releases were backward  
>compatible,
>
>Then I assert that there is no *need* to specify a minimum release  
>within a major release.

I fear my colleagues responsible to maintain the productive versions
would not be happy:

  They want the system to be as stable as possible.

  If they need to introduce a new component, they usually
  prefer to just add this one component. Only if this forces
  other updates, they reluctantly will make them.

The motivation for this behaviour: even if a newer version
is supposed to be backward compatible, it often has slightly different
behaviour which may trigger bugs in the other parts of a complex system.



-- 
Dieter