Marcus, thank you for the link. May I ask somebody who has watched the video to post a few words of a summary here....(keywords are fine)
--Hannes On 12/11/12, Marcus Denker <[email protected]> wrote: > > The inventor of Ruby on Rails gave a talk about this topic: > > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOFTop3AMZ8 > > > On Dec 11, 2012, at 11:02 AM, Esteban Lorenzano <[email protected]> > wrote: > >> yeah, but that's a direct path to stagnation, and that's what happened >> with fortran, java and all the languages that have put backward >> compatibility as top priority. >> in other side, .net is not backward compatible and it has success anyway >> so, is not so clear for me. >> >> I still prefer to drop backward compatibility time to time to drop a full >> language each 10 years :) >> >> Esteban >> >> On Dec 11, 2012, at 10:23 AM, dimitris chloupis <[email protected]> >> wrote: >> >>> I have to say I am on of those people who love backward compatibility. I >>> actually come from a programming language that did exactly what the quote >>> says. It was not a fun experience. Python 3 broke compatibility with >>> python 2. Most of the libraries did ignore python 3 for quite some time >>> and some still do. Actually if you google for "python 3" the second >>> search result of it is the "python wall of shame" where you will find >>> many of python libraries still stuck to python 2. The reason is that is a >>> lot of work to rewrite parts of library to make it compatible with python >>> 3. And note that python 3 has been around for 5 years. And is most likely >>> it will be another 5 till most major python libraries are finally ported >>> to python 3. >>> >>> http://python3wos.appspot.com/ >>> >>> Usually when I see "tragic fate" , "dead" , "declined" etc mentioned in >>> the same sentence with a programming language I am certain that it will >>> mention some "big flaw" of the language and I am going to facepalm >>> myself. In 99% of all case of "dead" languages it has nothing to do with >>> the language itself and has everything to do with hype and lack of good >>> marketing. >>> >>> I can tell you one thing, AFAIK the decision to brake compatibility with >>> python is still a big reason why one should not use python and is >>> considered one of the big flaw of python. I know that some people are in >>> denial, and I agree that python has been improved but not without paying >>> a big price as the "wall of shame" clearly shows. >>> >>> I can bring you another example, blenderpython, its the well known >>> Blender python api of the well known open source 3d app. Well if you take >>> a look at it you will find two things. a) blender 2.5 has been a rewrite >>> which is a very good thing but that ment sacrificing many useful addons >>> because not only the library changed but also they moved from python 2 to >>> 3 and b) API keeps braking compatibility in almost every single version. >>> The result is an army of addons that are left unmaintained because the >>> author makes something but he is not able to maintain every second month >>> because the developer decided to brake compatibility. Users ask for >>> updates to the addons and usually developers search for another developer >>> to maintain but most of those addons are left for dead. And that is >>> thousands of lines of code gone to waste. Actually very few developers >>> stick to blenderpython for this very reason. >>> >>> So no I have to disagree there, between choosing a better language or a >>> useful library and code that works in long term, I choose the second. I >>> am full on progress but I do find braking compatibility is just the easy >>> , convinient solution that does not quite work well in practice . >>> >>> From: Fernando Olivero <[email protected]> >>> To: "[email protected]" >>> <[email protected]> >>> Sent: Tuesday, 11 December 2012, 10:36 >>> Subject: [Pharo-project] About (backwards) Compatibility >>> >>> Hi, i wanted to share an "old" quote which i find relevant to our >>> community. Just replace FORTRAN's with loads of stuff we had in the >>> bloated images in the past, most of them useful to get were we are right >>> now. >>> >>> "FORTRAN's tragic fate has been its wide acceptance, mentally chaining >>> thousands and thousands of programmers to our past mistakes. I pray daily >>> that more of my fellow-programmers may find the means of freeing >>> themselves from the curse of compatibility." >>> >>> Dijkstra, The Humble Programmer, 1972 >>> >>> >>> >>> >> > >
