Re: GSOC 2013 - FEM LIBRARY

[Jordi Gutiérrez Hermoso]

On 31 May 2013 11:52, Júlio Hoffimann <address@hidden> wrote:
> proposal. I'm not contributing to LibreOffice anymore, they care too much
> about backwards compatibility, that doesn't excite me.

Backwards compatibility is a point of conflict between users and developers.

We want to do things. We want to change, to innovate, to improve.
Backward compatibility is a burden to these goals.

Our users want things to work. If possible, nothing should ever
change, even if the developer thinks it's for the better. The only
things that should change are those which are obviously broken. For
users, backwards compatibility is sacred.

It's ok by me if we don't try too hard to keep backwards
compatibility, but in this case, I think it's actually possible. We
just have to have all symbols with and without the oct:: namespace.
Carry the cruft around for a while, warn users that crufty things will
get removed some day, and in a few years remove them.

This still annoys users, but usually far fewer. Let's not forget that
we still have users ocasionally complaining about their 2.1 Octave
code breaking.

- Jordi G. H.