4 ms·

> Backwards compatibility is hard in software in general I disagree. Pretty much every desktop OS in the world manages to get quite a lot of backwards compatib

> Backwards compatibility is hard in software in general I disagree. Pretty much every desktop OS in the world manages to get quite a lot of backwards compatibility without a whole lot of trouble, except for Linux Desktop. That suggests the problem isn't hard, it's just that the culture of Linux Desktop is incompatible with the concept.

southerntofu 5y ago
> Pretty much every desktop OS in the world manages to get quite a lot of backwards compatibility without a whole lot of trouble, except for Linux Desktop. That's not at all my experience with Windows or MacOS. Sure some older apps work fine, but certainly not all of them.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
  The vast majority of them do, in my experience. Especially if you take into consideration how badly it doesn't work in Linux Desktop. You cannot usually even run a binary compiled for the previous version of your distro on the latest one!
necovek 5y ago
You must have missed all the articles on the huge effort Microsoft went to to maintain backwards compatibility (like that famous SimCity story). I can't find the original article anymore, but you can find references to it on Joel Spolsky's blog: - https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/05/24/strategy-letter-ii-chicken-and-egg-problems/ https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/05/24/strategy-letter-ii... - https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2004/06/13/how-microsoft-lost-the-api-war/ https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2004/06/13/how-microsoft-lost... Referenced posts probably live somewhere on https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/ https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/ today, but the quoted snippets should tell you that it's not that easy at all, and that Microsoft is investing heavily in maintaining it.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
  Yes, in order to increase their backwards compatibility Microsoft has, historically at least, done things like that. However, mostly they achieve backwards compatibility by just not breaking ABIs all the goddamned time. Windows backcompat isn't perfect, true, but largely the stories of where it fails are exceptions to the rule. Where as you can't even have backward compatibility in a Linux Desktop with applications compiled for the previous version of the same distribution in many cases.
  - necovek 5y ago
    You started off by disagreeing that backwards compatibility is hard, because other platforms (like Windows or MacOS) can do it. When given evidence that it's at huge cost and investment that they manage to do that (basically an admission from them that it is hard — you may have a different definition of "hard" than I do), you seem to suggest that either they are not doing a lot of work towards compatibility or that they are wasting all that money because they could have simply maintained backwards ABI compatibility while developing new features "easy-peasy". Why did they choose not to take the easy way out and made it hard for themselves? From my software development experience, maintaining API backwards compatibility is "hard" (requires significant extra effort to achieve compared to just not doing it), not to mention ABI complexities on top.
    - AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
      You misunderstand. I am saying that all that effort was spent chasing the long tail of compatibility, which is valuable if compatibility is one of your big selling points. However, one need not go to such extremes to get a good amount of compatibility, just don't have a policy of breaking ABIs constantly the way Linux Desktop does.
      - necovek 5y ago
        Ok, I see your premise now. I am not sure I agree: do you know of a system that has seen less investment on backwards compatibility yet successfully maintains it? Of course, not "frozen" like TeX, but seeing active feature development too.

southerntofu 5y ago

> Pretty much every desktop OS in the world manages to get quite a lot of backwards compatibility without a whole lot of trouble, except for Linux Desktop. That's not at all my experience with Windows or MacOS. Sure some older apps work fine, but certainly not all of them.

AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
The vast majority of them do, in my experience. Especially if you take into consideration how badly it doesn't work in Linux Desktop. You cannot usually even run a binary compiled for the previous version of your distro on the latest one!

necovek 5y ago

You must have missed all the articles on the huge effort Microsoft went to to maintain backwards compatibility (like that famous SimCity story). I can't find the original article anymore, but you can find references to it on Joel Spolsky's blog: - https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/05/24/strategy-letter-ii-chicken-and-egg-problems/ https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/05/24/strategy-letter-ii... - https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2004/06/13/how-microsoft-lost-the-api-war/ https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2004/06/13/how-microsoft-lost... Referenced posts probably live somewhere on https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/ https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/ today, but the quoted snippets should tell you that it's not that easy at all, and that Microsoft is investing heavily in maintaining it.

AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
Yes, in order to increase their backwards compatibility Microsoft has, historically at least, done things like that. However, mostly they achieve backwards compatibility by just not breaking ABIs all the goddamned time. Windows backcompat isn't perfect, true, but largely the stories of where it fails are exceptions to the rule. Where as you can't even have backward compatibility in a Linux Desktop with applications compiled for the previous version of the same distribution in many cases.
- necovek 5y ago
  You started off by disagreeing that backwards compatibility is hard, because other platforms (like Windows or MacOS) can do it. When given evidence that it's at huge cost and investment that they manage to do that (basically an admission from them that it is hard — you may have a different definition of "hard" than I do), you seem to suggest that either they are not doing a lot of work towards compatibility or that they are wasting all that money because they could have simply maintained backwards ABI compatibility while developing new features "easy-peasy". Why did they choose not to take the easy way out and made it hard for themselves? From my software development experience, maintaining API backwards compatibility is "hard" (requires significant extra effort to achieve compared to just not doing it), not to mention ABI complexities on top.
  - AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
    You misunderstand. I am saying that all that effort was spent chasing the long tail of compatibility, which is valuable if compatibility is one of your big selling points. However, one need not go to such extremes to get a good amount of compatibility, just don't have a policy of breaking ABIs constantly the way Linux Desktop does.
    - necovek 5y ago
      Ok, I see your premise now. I am not sure I agree: do you know of a system that has seen less investment on backwards compatibility yet successfully maintains it? Of course, not "frozen" like TeX, but seeing active feature development too.