Realise I'm a bit late to the party here but I'd like to give my 2 cents, not that it'll matter much ;)
It's really bad form to push an update to users that will break their existing setups. Most of the debate seems to be centred around the fact that "well they must have installed it in the first place so they should be able to deal with the change". That's really not the case, with XBMC's userbase only growing by the day it's no longer realistic to assume that only self-installs exist, I personally have installed openelec on some (about 10) Revos for most of my family and all of those installs will have to be "fixed" after the update. I'm sure I'm not alone in this, I would imagine most XBMC setups have more than one user, and that not all of those users would necessarily know how to re-setup the skin if needed. Changing look isn't an issue, it's the wiping out of the old settings that'll need to be re-setup. I don't think that such a major change should be left up to the authors of a plugin, isn't it the responsibility of those managing the official repo to ensure as little breakage as is possible? I don't think it's unreasonable not to expect major breakage during the lifetime of a stable release, especially when it's avoidable (even if it will cause temporary pain for the authors). Any unstable update is going to reflect badly on XBMC as a whole, not necessarily the skin/script/plugin that causes the breakage. Whatever the outcome of this, would it maybe be worth implementing some sort of policy for the future to ensure at the very least string/settings stability over the course of a stable release? Or maybe a change in the addon system to indicate that an update may break compatibility with the old settings and allow to disable those types of updates? Sorry for the rant ;) Paddy On 22/05/12 18:04, Cory Fields wrote: > After a good bit of thought I've come to the same conclusion, it's the > author's call here. I don't like this one bit, but if it's what the > authors want I'll push and we'll watch the fallout. Be aware though, > this will set a precedent. So if it users get pissy, you can bet we > won't go down this path again. > > True the skin-look changes aren't the end of the world. The heart of > the issue is that most users getting this change won't know what hit > them. But you guys were right that anyone getting this update was at > some point adventurous enough to install it on their own, so we're not > talking about the average user. > > Also, this should be a lesson about reusing strings ;) > > Cory > > > On Tue, May 22, 2012 at 8:14 AM, Philipp Temminghoff > <[email protected]> wrote: >> i don´t really want to use skin bool labels which are more complex than >> needed. >> and i also do not want to get used to several hundred new bool names. >> a skinner´s life is hard enough already ;) >> >> >> On May 22, 2012 2:04 PM, "[email protected]" >> <[email protected]> wrote: >>> Poor machine having to do all the work of s and r? Contrary to humans they >>> love repetitive tasks you know ;) >> >> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ >> Live Security Virtual Conference >> Exclusive live event will cover all the ways today's security and >> threat landscape has changed and how IT managers can respond. Discussions >> will include endpoint security, mobile security and the latest in malware >> threats. http://www.accelacomm.com/jaw/sfrnl04242012/114/50122263/ >> _______________________________________________ >> Xbmc-addons mailing list >> [email protected] >> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/xbmc-addons >> > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ > Live Security Virtual Conference > Exclusive live event will cover all the ways today's security and > threat landscape has changed and how IT managers can respond. Discussions > will include endpoint security, mobile security and the latest in malware > threats. http://www.accelacomm.com/jaw/sfrnl04242012/114/50122263/ > _______________________________________________ > Xbmc-addons mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/xbmc-addons ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Live Security Virtual Conference Exclusive live event will cover all the ways today's security and threat landscape has changed and how IT managers can respond. Discussions will include endpoint security, mobile security and the latest in malware threats. http://www.accelacomm.com/jaw/sfrnl04242012/114/50122263/ _______________________________________________ Xbmc-addons mailing list [email protected] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/xbmc-addons
