On Sat, Feb 21, 2009 at 12:12 AM, Daniel Kinzler <dan...@brightbyte.de> wrote: > Aran schrieb: >> Hi I'm just wondering what the policy is with regards to changes to >> extension code in the svn in the case where the modification is >> compatible only with recent versions. Shouldn't extensions be designed >> to be as backward compatible as is practical rather than focussing >> exclusively on supporting the current release? > > Extensions are not required to be backwards compatible. It's nice if they are, > but they don't have to. Extensions are branched off along with the major > releases of MediaWiki, and versions on the branches should be compatible with > the respective version of mediawiki.
I would add that if someone is going to change an extension in a way that they know is not backwards compatible, it is nice to write down in the online documentation which was the last revision compatible with the old Mediawiki version. That way someone using an old install will be able to locate the previous, compatible version of the extension if they need to. For example then SpecialInterwiki extension [1] has versions that work all the way back to Mediawiki 1.6, but it notes that changes around 1.11 and 1.12 are not backwards compatible and links to the old file versions for users who do need that. -Robert Rohde [1] http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:SpecialInterwiki _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
