Re: [Rails-devel] Implementation levels

[Erik V. <eri...@xs...>]

Save file compatilibity is important for regression testing, as long we
don’t have better ways to retest existing functionality than by loading old
saved files (at least I don't). Several classes have extra code to cope with
that. One day we might decide to take the hit and clean up all such code,
but IMO that should be a conscious decision. Fortunately, the main thing to
do about that is making sure that PossibleAction subclasses can still
deserialize when extra attributes have been added.

These days, most incompabilities arise as a consequence of bug fixing. This
might make old moves illegal (for instance, when the order of operation of
companies has changed). Another recent example is the inclusion of an extra
action to select the home city on a OO tile (1830 Erie, 1856 THB). The only
option to resume such a broken game with a new version is replaying the game
from the start, or from a file saved just before the cause of the change.

Erik.

-----Original Message-----
From: brett lentz [mailto:bre...@gm...] 
Sent: Wednesday 17 March 2010 18:14
To: Development list for Rails: an 18xx game
Subject: Re: [Rails-devel] Implementation levels

On Wed, Mar 17, 2010 at 9:58 AM, Chris Shaffer <chr...@gm...>
wrote:
>> I agree, somewhat.  I think the assumption should just be to finish a
>> game with the same version of Rails that started the game.
>>
>> Until the codebase matures a bit, I don't really think it's worthwhile
>> to spend a ton of effort worrying about save file compatibility.
>
> The one concern I have with this is showstopper bugs.  If a group is
playing
> a game, gets halfway through, and can't continue because of a bug, there
> should be some support for converting their game to the new version with
the
> bugfix.
>
> --
> Chris


Of course.   I'm not saying that we won't support users when they have
problems.  We absolutely should and will.

I'm saying that, as developers, we shouldn't spend a lot of time
trying to preserve backwards compatibility with old save formats. It's
extra work that just doesn't buy us anything at this stage in rails'
maturity.

If the number of safe files that we need to migrate forward to the new
format grows substantially, obviously we'll need to change this
strategy or develop tools to allow users to migrate save files. For
now, I'd just like to see bug fixes and new games/features take a
higher priority than save file compatibility.

---Brett.

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