I think the incompatibilities in graphics and unicode cost less pain, because
it is possible to write cover function or conditional code to migrate a script
so that it run under both new and old J. Also the gain is substantial.
But you have to either use x or x. there is no middle way because one of them is
invalid. Writing conditional code for every explicit verb is not feasible so
that it is difficult to a write script run under both version. Current J beta
provide both x and x. but it may be unplugged in future release and relying on
it means migration not yet done.
Henry Rich wrote:
I think this incompatibility concern is overblown. The move to
J6 does in fact have some big incompatibilities, in graphics
and unicode. But I don't see how Jsoftware could have avoided
making the changes they made: the system has to evolve.
I spent a couple of weeks on the conversion, not cheerfully,
but without ill will.
The change from x. to x has cost me about 10 minutes of work
and saved me a few lines of code. I agree with Bill that
the gain is not much compared with the cost, but I like the
code better with the dots removed so I'm content.
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