5 ms·

Are there examples of widely used, mature projects that have gone the opposite way?

progval 10y ago
web browsers? I'm thinking particularly of Firefox, with all these extensions that do not work with the latest versions.
- Animats 10y ago
  That's been coming for years. XUL addons have never worked on mobile Firefox.
- rockdoe 10y ago
  Firefox used to do the infrequent large change thing, then moved to frequent small breakage. Specific to add-ons: every release has broken some and the XUL depreciation is to some extent to deal with that problem better. Note that users hate both options proposed in the article passionately, it just seems that break early break often results in fewer users voting with their feet.
mbroncano 10y ago
Swift ?
- hyperpape 10y ago
  I think they aren't a reasonable comparison because they're very young and warned up front that they'd break compatibility several times in the early years.
tedunangst 10y ago
OpenBSD, llvm, and go all have six month cadences.
- hyperpape 10y ago
  And do the same sorts of breaking changes get made, just distributed in smaller chunks through those six month releases?
  - tedunangst 10y ago
    Exactly.
  - mixedCase 10y ago
    I don't know about OpenBSD and LLVM, but Go has made good on the Go 1 compatibility promise, with only a few minor changes being disputed as wether they break it or not. Go 2.0 will probably be a different story, assuming it ever comes out, but I have a hard time believing the devs will release anything that won't be fixable using the "go fix" tool.
- tbrock 10y ago
  And ubuntu and gnome and fedora and...
  - hp 10y ago
    Yep. it works well. https://wiki.gnome.org/ReleasePlanning/TimeBased https://wiki.gnome.org/ReleasePlanning/TimeBased
- usernam 10y ago
  I can only comment on the specific llvm case, but I cannot say "it works" without listing the fact that I have to keep ~5-6 versions of llvm around _exactly_ for that reason. You cannot compare an OS, or in general any product which is "complete by itself" (browsers), with a compiler which is then used to _make_ the end product. Your source depends on it, and as it grows it just becomes increasingly hard to keep up. Rolling releases are /also/ a tradeoff. I'm not particularly pleased with llvm in this case. I genuinely prefer semantic releases, and yes, even the python2->3 strategy in this context.
SatvikBeri 10y ago
Not sure if Scala counts (it's 12 years old) but it continues to have (usually minor) breaking changes on each release.
- premium-concern 10y ago
  Do you have an example of what broke between 2.11.7 and 2.11.8?
  - SatvikBeri 10y ago
    Sorry, by release I meant e.g. 2.11 -> 2.12 . I don't recall any breakages in recent memory on smaller versions.
gbrown_ 10y ago
Here's a presentation from Theo de Raadt on how OpenBSD does its releases, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7pkyDUX5uM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7pkyDUX5uM.

web browsers? I'm thinking particularly of Firefox, with all these extensions that do not work with the latest versions.

Animats 10y ago
That's been coming for years. XUL addons have never worked on mobile Firefox.
rockdoe 10y ago
Firefox used to do the infrequent large change thing, then moved to frequent small breakage. Specific to add-ons: every release has broken some and the XUL depreciation is to some extent to deal with that problem better. Note that users hate both options proposed in the article passionately, it just seems that break early break often results in fewer users voting with their feet.

mbroncano 10y ago

Swift ?

hyperpape 10y ago
I think they aren't a reasonable comparison because they're very young and warned up front that they'd break compatibility several times in the early years.

tedunangst 10y ago

OpenBSD, llvm, and go all have six month cadences.

hyperpape 10y ago
And do the same sorts of breaking changes get made, just distributed in smaller chunks through those six month releases?
- tedunangst 10y ago
  Exactly.
- mixedCase 10y ago
  I don't know about OpenBSD and LLVM, but Go has made good on the Go 1 compatibility promise, with only a few minor changes being disputed as wether they break it or not. Go 2.0 will probably be a different story, assuming it ever comes out, but I have a hard time believing the devs will release anything that won't be fixable using the "go fix" tool.
tbrock 10y ago
And ubuntu and gnome and fedora and...
- hp 10y ago
  Yep. it works well. https://wiki.gnome.org/ReleasePlanning/TimeBased https://wiki.gnome.org/ReleasePlanning/TimeBased
usernam 10y ago
I can only comment on the specific llvm case, but I cannot say "it works" without listing the fact that I have to keep ~5-6 versions of llvm around _exactly_ for that reason. You cannot compare an OS, or in general any product which is "complete by itself" (browsers), with a compiler which is then used to _make_ the end product. Your source depends on it, and as it grows it just becomes increasingly hard to keep up. Rolling releases are /also/ a tradeoff. I'm not particularly pleased with llvm in this case. I genuinely prefer semantic releases, and yes, even the python2->3 strategy in this context.

SatvikBeri 10y ago

Not sure if Scala counts (it's 12 years old) but it continues to have (usually minor) breaking changes on each release.

premium-concern 10y ago
Do you have an example of what broke between 2.11.7 and 2.11.8?
- SatvikBeri 10y ago
  Sorry, by release I meant e.g. 2.11 -> 2.12 . I don't recall any breakages in recent memory on smaller versions.

gbrown_ 10y ago

Here's a presentation from Theo de Raadt on how OpenBSD does its releases, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7pkyDUX5uM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7pkyDUX5uM.