On Apr 6, 2010, at 12:39 PM, Krzysztof Kosiński wrote:
"Loading different versions correctly" is not a solution, it is a description of the problem! Propose something specific.
Exactly!
If one wants to get a good solution to a problem, one must first have an accurate description of that problem. Far too often I see people jump straight into hammering on the details of the "how" without considering the big picutre of the "why".
So for those out there just starting to look at what you've pointed out, a very clear stating of the problem is of utmost importance.
In the "upgrading files" solution, the SP layer code can remain understandable and free of backwards compatibility hacks. It also gives some degree of forward compatibility: if the document format number is higher that what we understand, because it was saved with a later version of Inkscape, we can offer to reload the document as plain SVG.
Ooh, those are all very helpful details. See if you can get those broken up to some simple bullet-point lists on the wiki.
From my viewpoint it does seem like you are considering many of the pertinent factors. It is just that *how* they are being applied might not be the best *how*. For example, avoiding "backwards compatibility hacks" is a very good things, however there are many good design approaches that can be brought to use in solving that specific sub-problem.
And if we can get things listed simply and explicitly then others can help adding a point or two here and there that we might have overlooked. It's in gathering up all such points that one can see which solution will be the best solution overall. We need to be sure to be looking at different solutions to solve the problem, instead of searching for a problem to fit a solution. (that's a trap that is easy to fall into, especially for developing software).