From kleiweg@let.rug.nl  Wed May  1 13:33:04 2002
From: kleiweg@let.rug.nl (Peter Kleiweg)
Date: Wed, 1 May 2002 14:33:04 +0200 (CEST)
Subject: [Rd] maketitle.pl for Perl 4.004
In-Reply-To: <15567.48982.979129.244967@mithrandir.hornik.net>
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.33.0205011413170.426-100000@kleigh.nl>

Kurt Hornik scribeva...

> >>>>> Peter Kleiweg writes:

> > I write quite some software myself. Working with an old system
> > like I have has the advantage that I never hear people complain
> > that my software doesn't work on their system because there
> > system is too old.
>
> Following the same reasoning, wouldn't one always stay with R 0.14 or
> similar?  Note that e.g. requiring Perl 5.005 only has implications for
> *developers* and not for users because we have no dependency on Perl at
> run-time.  And the hope would be that developers have access to software
> which is 4 years old and typically available in pre-packaged binaries.

Of course R should be developed further. But requiring Perl
5.005 does effect end users. I have stopped downloading
binaries long ago, because they never work on older systems. So
just to use R, I have to compile R myself. And just installing
the recommended packages for R 1.5.0 needs Perl 5.005.

And what about new or upgraded packages? Do you ask users
to reinstall R just because they want to add a package, or do
you keep packages compatible with older versions of R? I always
go for backward compatibility as much as possible when I'm
developing software.

Of course, my system is very old. There won't be many people
left working with such an old system. I can understand you have
to draw the line somewhere. But the package 'tcltk' won't work
on a system just over two years old. I guess this will be a
problem for many people.

-- 
Peter Kleiweg

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[Rd] maketitle.pl for Perl 4.004
Peter Kleiweg