I use both the 3.02 and 3.1g Windows versions (also MegaPov 0.4).  Isn't a
problem.  The others I have here run under DOS.
The concept is, as people know, that backward compatibility is a matter of
convenience in order to use older scenes or features from older versions without
having to juggle versions.  In fact I'd say the biggest problem isn't about
using older syntax as it would be the using of newer syntax in older versions.
Mix-ups would occur if you had a scene containing old and new together unless
the latest version were to accommodate the change instead.
Dare I ask, what if you wanted to do a media plus halo scene?  But really there
isn't much in the way of what an earlier version did which the later versions
can't do.  Mostly a matter of syntax, aside from the aforementioned 'halo' and
of course 'atmosphere'.  However it seems these two things have been considered
evolutionary dead-ends which should never have existed.  Not thought as such by
many people apparently, but perhaps only due to the using and learning of them
over that short period of time they were a part of POV-Ray.
Back to the point of the question.  It's not a good solution to use older
versions just to keep using older scene files unless the idea is to remain
working on them indefinitely in the same way.  There should be an evolving
taking place whether the Neanderthals of the POV-Ray Trace scripts ultimately
disappear or not.  Still, I like the idea of everything continuing from it's
inception to the next version without any gap.  To say that's feasible though is
another matter left up to programming neatness.

Bob

"Serge LAROCQUE" <sgl### [at] hotmailcom%> wrote in message
news:38d31dc2@news.povray.org...
| Would it be easier to distribute the old binaries instead of keeping the
| new binaries backward compatible? (I am not advocating either option,
| just asking)
|
| So, if you had a 2.0 pov file (or whatever) you could use the binary for
| that version. I can see that this would be easy to do in the unix
| versions, less so for the Win32 versions. (i.e. if you have a 3.0 and a
| 3.1 binary, I don't know how easily you could have both on a windows
| system)
|

Post a reply to this message