begin quoting John H. Robinson, IV as of Tue, Nov 01, 2005 at 01:24:49PM -0800: > gossamer axe wrote: [snip] > > pst files, you have to archive it or back it up to get it to work right. I'd > > much rather fuss over an X config file anyday over upgrading/downgrading > > Outlook. > > The point is, he was taking a Ooutlook data file, and applying it to a a > version that was three years younger. Very few applications are aware of > ^^^^^^^ > all the things that will be added in three years. I know of no
EA tried with the IFF (Interchange File Format) specification. If you have a file generated with version 4 of $app, and then load it in to version 2 of $app, version 2 should be able to do what it does w/o mucking up the data for version 4. In theory. I personally prefer extensible file formats. I *want* to be able to take the latest-and-greatest data file for $APP and load it in to an older version of $APP. This means, of course, that a LOT more thought has to go into designing the file format ahead of time. > applications that can parse a future file formats whose format has > changed significantly, such as was seen from xfree86-3 to xfree86-4. And if you could manage that transparently, someone would wonder why you couldn't load your xfree config file into mpg123 and have it "just work..." > The only reason that an xconfig file could even be dealt with reasonably > in that situation is because there is documentation for both styles of > config files, and there are good tools (read: text editor) to manipulate > them. I doubt there exists either for .pst files. Simple is good. -Stewart "Make the format simple. And then document it." Stremler -- [email protected] http://www.kernel-panic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kplug-list
