1. Temporal discontinuities -- a "major hassle"
Sirs!
If winter were to come in mid-August, just over-night, to Canada,
what would happen to the nature and people?
If (let's say God) swapped the constitution and entire law, between
the U.S. and Iran? Or between China and Botswana? Over-night.
If a guy in Redmond replaced his entire API with something entirely
different (which he should, but that's another issue 
), and
did it over-night?
What if the sea level rose 3 feet at once?
-----
Well, the last one we know what happens. The other ones would cause
similar grief, mayhem, and disruption. And death, also of firms and
corporations. (Hence the word "disruptive technology" 
)
In the development of a language, there invariably rise issues that
would cause a lot of existing code to break. I see it here, and I
see it with the other languages whose development I follow.
Some languages have the Deprecated concept. The compiler warns about
constructs that may be removed after a few versions. Some other
languages state this in documents. Some smaller just make a public
statement of the fact.
-----
What we could do is make a list of things that we have decided
(or actually Rob has), that should change causing massive code-
breakage. This list would show which version of Euphoria will
incorporate each change.
Such a list would be on the web site, and also in the Release
notes. And it would be stated that said list is only for info,
and may change.
The list could even contain links to specific info on how to
cope in advance, and best practices on how to work around
the canges, also afterwards.
Not a perfect solution, but surely it would make programmers'
lives (somewhat) easier, give us (Rob) more room right now to
think about alternatives, etc.
And give an immediate air of continuity and deliberacy.
Here, as well as with other languages, I see procrastination,
mainly caused by (warranted or unwarranted) fear of breaking
existing code. These pile up, and after a while everybody is
a lot worse off than if some painful things had been done in
time. Advance knowledge alleviates the downsides, for all.
There are lakes in Finland that freeze overnight. But hey,
the animals, insects and plants over there "know" this, it's
no problem to them since they are prepared for it.
-- Another Euphoric, since Nov. 18, 2004 --
