On 7/28/06, Jesse Kuhnert <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
We also ~never~ discussed or thought about backwards compatibility while designing/developing a new major product version. This wasn't a clunky little windows app we were developing either. It was a rather large fault tolerant medical records system that people used in operating rooms / critical care areas / etc. We had custom hardware to design / devices interfacing with hospital equipment / 5 9's requirements / etc....Ie they weren't f-#%-ing around when it came to stability ;)
I don't know much about your product but it somehow sounds to me like your main stakeholders are end-users. And the same forces cannot work for developers. Also you were lucky that you did not need to consider backward compatibility as a major driver. But when designing a new framework, you really need to take into account all the forces. It looks like in your case you had first features and reliability and only later you had backward compatibility. I'm not sure how other people here think about backward compatilibity (hmmm the less development involved the happier dev's are I guess) but it is planned, I should be taken care as a driving factor in the design. And one of the bottom lines of this discussion, is that I don't understand why T5 has to be so different from T4. I'm quite happy with T4, the component and pages could have a better API but other than that I provides elegant solutions to our problems. Also, my major grief with T4 is not at all the framework but rather the documentation. I can work with any framework that has a good documentation, I don't really care about the internals or API if the doc tells me how to solve my problems. Thinking about other frameworks that went through a massive redesign I'm wondering how EJB 3 adoption is. But Sun did not only come with a framework this time but they are pushing the adoption with massive tooling.
This is just how the process works. At the end of the day, when whatever form of T5 does come out I'm supremely confident that backwards compatibility will be addressed. Partly from years of experience developing products this way, and partly because I just promised it would :) I can't speak to the other issues as much - besides the fact that this is so early in the process people shouldn't be basing their opinions on anything other than the pure design of it as it is - but I view the IoC work being done as a huge example of how Howard ~is~ listening to users. It's become pretty obvious that however technically good hivemind is it has become a thorn in the side of the tapestry 4 series as far as new users getting up to speed.
-- Henri Dupre Actualis Center
