Subject: Re: package update.
From: Paul J. Menchini (mench@mench.com)
Date: Thu Oct 03 2002 - 08:22:28 PDT
David Bishop wrote:
> "Paul J. Menchini" wrote:
>> Jim Lewis wrote:
>>> Are you thinking of appending a year code: numeric_std_2002 ?
>>> I think this is a good idea as it helps with portability of old code.
>> I would not support a change to the name of the package in the
>> absence of factors that would break old code. Specifically, if none
>> of the following statements are true
>> * features are removed
>> * the semantics of existing features are changed in a non-upward
>> compatible fashion
>> I would not change the name. Otherwise, we'll break old code for no
>> reason. (In the absence of a name change, unless one of the above
>> statements were true, old code would exhibit no changes in behavior.)
> That being the case, we should place another constraint on ourselves:
> Do not change the functonality of the current packages, and do not add
> functionality which would necessitate legacy code to be changed.
The requirements are pretty simple:
* Don't remove any features
* Don't change existing semantics
You can still
* Add features
* Make something legal that was formerly illegal
* Add optional parameters to the end of an existing parameter list
* etc.
> We should run the old test suite aginst the new code when we are done
> to verify this. Note that I have a copy of that verification code
> sitting in a subdirectory of mine just in case.
Sounds like a plan....
Paul
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