"Mueen Nawaz" <m.n### [at] ieeeorg> wrote in message
news:49cbd590$1@news.povray.org...
> Chris B wrote:
>> Backwards Compatibility
>> There's a lot of time been invested in tutorials, interfaces, macros and
>> objects.
>> Much of the written information out on the Internet (including the years
>> of newsgroup postings) doesn't specify which version it relates to, so
>> if this material is rendered largely redundant it's probably going to be
>> wise to totally change the product name. Otherwise there's a risk of
>> years of confusion that may create difficult barriers to new users.
>
> I doubt a product name change is necessary. However, it should be made
> clear all over the place (docs, Web site, etc) that the latest Pov will
> break compatibility with anything before v4.

When you say "all over the place" you may be able to access a few sites, but
when newbies do a Google and discover thousands of sites containing
materials most of which just inexplicably don't work and can't readily be
made to work then it's likely to have a very negative effect on their
impression of the software.

> I personally don't think there's a great need to maintain backward
> compatibility as far as syntax/code goes. I think the hope is that the
> new SDL will provide "nicer"/"better" ways to do stuff than the old SDL
> - and so we wouldn't want people being hampered by tutorials from the
> past - but force them to learn the new way of thinking.

Well yes. Hope springs eternal :-) But reality depends upon people who hope
that they will show an aptitude for developing a fantastic new computer
language (when they've probably never done that before) realising their
particular dreams in a way that other people can stomach.

> One possibility is to try to find lots of good tutorials, put them onto
> the Wiki (if permission can be acquired), and before POV4 is released,
> update the tutorials to show how to get each effect using POV4.

As one of the few who has added stuff to the Wiki I can testify to how
quickly that sort of thing falls onto the shoulders of a very small number
of people. The amount of such work that can be realistically completed is
invariably tiny compared with initial expectations.

In this case there are some very practical problems with this as it would
require people with a reasonable knowledge of the old SDL and a good
knowledge of how the future SDL would best achieve the same results. Doing
this before the code is finished might require a disproportionately high 
number
of genius level experts.

Also, this misses the point a bit in that you can create up-to-date 
tutorials
but they'll be competing for prominance in Google with a greater number of
better established, but out of date tutorials that don't contain any 
indication
that they may be out of date.

Regards,
Chris B.

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