Your solution is that developers be perfect and get interfaces right the first time :-) While that is admirable, the chances of it happening for the majority o

Your solution is that developers be perfect and get interfaces right the first time :-) While that is admirable, the chances of it happening for the majority of software is zero! Your Microsoft binaries still work because of the huge amount of effort Microsoft puts into backwards compatibility - read Raymond Chen's blog for details. In particular when apps are buggy, Microsoft goes to great lengths to keep the app working.