softimage developers actually did think about doing forward compatibility in the early days (SI3D supported it!), however, it's something that in our case would need to be tested on a daily basis to see if it doesn't break - a requires constant work. It's easier when the file format is not linked to the data structures; for example if it's an XML file or a script like the maya scene file. in media composer, they had one central place that handled the persistance for everything.
however, in an object-oriented software where each object is responsible for its own persistance, it's very difficult because each object has a potential to do something wrong. how many objects are there in XSI, hundreds? , there sure is a lot of place with persistance code.. btw if I'm most mistaken they added a 'save as previous version' in Max just a couple of years ago - it is something that the softimage team could conceivably consider. On Tue, Apr 17, 2012 at 9:10 AM, Brent McPherson <[email protected]> wrote: > There is also this quote on the same thread: > > "...they should be forward compatible as well; if there are objects or > constructs in a file that is not understood by the version, it is ignored. > With all of that being said, there have been so many changes between 2.3x and > 2.4x, I personally think it would be a miracle." > > With open source you get what you pay for. It is all fine and dandy to claim > forwards compatibility but if it doesn't work in practice or your scenes get > corrupted then you have no recourse except to dive into the code and fix it > yourself. ;-) > > I think commercial companies avoid forward compatibility because it doesn't > really benefit you to invest significant engineering resources to support > customers who are not upgrading. (and the upgrade cycle is what allows > commercial software companies to invest in new features) > > Open source is not necessarily market driven or resource bound so they > (individual contributors) are free to do whatever they want. If you are doing > something as a hobby then why no jump in and have a stab at making a forwards > compatible file format. If it doesn't work in practice then no big deal and > the devs probably learned a lot by trying. > Hell, if I were designing a new file format for 3D I would probably try to > structure things so that I could load unrecognized objects/data and have it > preserved if the file gets written out again. It would be a nice feature to > have but obviously wasn't at the top of the list when Maya and Soft were > developed. ;-) > -- > Brent > > From: [email protected] > [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Ed Schiffer > Sent: 17 April 2012 15:44 > To: [email protected] > Subject: Re: 2013 save scene = no load in 2012? > > just to tease with a sad opensource gracefulness: > > "The blend file format is made especially for backward and forward > compatibility." > > http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?88396-Transfer-From-Different-Blender-Versions.&s=d7921a05b3276ab49f1c70ff874313cc > > didn't test myself, though
