Re: [Tcllib-devel] Tcl 8.2 support

[Pat T. <pat...@us...>]

Jeff Hobbs <je...@ac...> writes:

>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.

Pah. I test it occasionally with 8.2. Usually when a release is
up. However - I see no reason why people who stick with 10 year old
versions of Tcl shouldn't also stick with old versions of tcllib.

-- 
Pat Thoyts                            http://www.patthoyts.tk/
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