Tabula Rasa
(Latin). A clean slate; a blank or erased tablet.
Backwards Compatibility. I'm hardly a Mac user, but from what I've heard, they don't bother with it. Every Mac OS release is a clean slate (or close to it) and the end user just has to adjust. On the other side, Microsoft spends millions (billions?) making sure that you can still open that document you put together using Word 95 in Office 2007.
Which approach is better? Define better.
I think it can be stipulated that there is a proportional relationship between code complexity and and the investment of time and money required to produce and maintain it. Conversely, there must be a proportional relationship between how often an information system (the software and the data) must be updated and the investment of time and money to do the updates.
Hence, backwards compatibility is good for the user. Software companies only exist to serve the needs of their users. So, how good software is at meeting the needs of the user reflects the quality of the organization which produced the software. Thus backward compatibility is better, it is something good software companies maintain to meet the needs of their users.
But I sure wish I didn't have to burn cycles doing it myself.
Comments (3)
Uh, you're mixing document formats with operating systems. Try running Office 97 on Windows 3.1.
Posted by joat | February 11, 2007 7:07 AM
Posted on February 11, 2007 07:07
Short answer: you have heard incorrectly. Backward compatibility has always been pretty good on the Mac, for pretty much all definitions of the term.
A longer answer will have to wait until you clarify what you mean. Do you mean to imply that new Mac OSes can't run old programs? That old Mac OSes can't run new programs? New Apple-written programs can't open old documents? Old Apple-written programs can't open new documents?
Unfortunately, the term 'backward compatibility' (and its less-frequently-used cousin, 'forward compatiblity') is not a well-defined term, because, like the term 'download' vs. 'upload', it depends which end you're standing on. Is being able to run old programs on a new OS backward compatiblity? From the point of view of the OS, it is. Is being able to run new programs on an old OS backward compatibility? From the point of the program, it is. But since both depend in large part on both the OS (and its libraries) and the program itself, it's not easy to tell what you mean.
-fred
Posted by Fred Fnord | February 22, 2007 5:45 PM
Posted on February 22, 2007 17:45
Hello Fred,
You're absolutely correct. In reading over what I wrote, my comments about backward compatibility are very vague.
That day I was musing out loud as I was engaged in rewriting a vulnerability check so that it would run with older versions of our product. I had originally written the check in a syntax only available in our more recent product releases, but it (the check) didn't depend on new functionality so could/should be available to our customers still using older versions of our product.
So the backward compatibility is there (in our product) I was just personally struggling to make use of it as a client programmer. :)
Posted by Ross Barrett | February 26, 2007 7:10 AM
Posted on February 26, 2007 07:10