Re: [Tcllib-devel] Tcl 8.2 support

[Jeff H. <je...@ac...>]

Lars Hellström wrote:
> I can understand a policy of "don't make any changes to patches, or 
> otherwise restrain your coding style, just for the sake of preserving 
> compatibility with Tcl 8.x if x<4". I can also understand not wanting 
> to entertain old Tcl versions just for the sake of testing tcllib 
> releases, in the hope that someone, somewhere might appreciate it.
> 
> On the other hand, denying the actual compatibility level of a piece of 
> software feels rather artificial.
> 
> Is the catch the uncertainty factor: that one can _presume_ a package 
> works with Tcl 8.2 based on the features it uses, but won't really 
> _know_ whether this is the case until having tested it on an actual Tcl 
> 8.2 interpreter?

This is the primary reason.  Unless someone else is secretly doing it, 
tcllib hasn't been tested against anything below 8.4 in a long time.  We 
also want to use 8.4 tcltest features in the test suite now.

We have had issues where 8.4-isms crept into code that claimed to be 
"8.2-compliant" and somebody noticed.  I contend that those people can 
live with old bits if they want to live with old Tcl versions, and that 
we should simply not encumber ourselves with development of tcllib to 
anything prior to 8.4.

Jeff