Am 04.01.2019 um 14:27 schrieb ingo:

> I know that backwards compatibility always has been a big deal with POV-
> Ray, but is breaking it and keeping all previous versions around as binary
> and/or source not an easier way to do that? Maybe even as a single
> download.
> 
> I would not mind having several versions on my system and having the IDE
> automatically switch to the right engine based on the #version directive
> in the scene.

That would require a strict separation and stable interface between IDE 
and render engine - which we currently don't really have. 
Architecturally, the IDE and render engine are currently a rather 
monolithic thing.

Even if we had such an interface, what you suggest would still require 
at least some baseline maintenance on all the old versions we want to 
support, so that they keep working as runtime and build environments 
change over time. Cases in point: v3.6 had to be modified to play nice 
with Windows Vista; and v3.7.0 had to be modified to play nice with 
modern versions of the boost library, compilers conforming to modern C++ 
language standards, and modern versions of the Unix Automake toolset.

And then there is the issue of how to deal with legacy include files 
used in new scenes. Switching parsers mid-scene is not a viable option.

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