Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!dali.cs.montana.edu!caen!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!swrinde!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!decwrl!pa.dec.com!bacchus!mwm From: mwm@pa.dec.com (Mike (My Watch Has Windows) Meyer) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.programmer Subject: Re: Short Hello World Message-ID: Date: 22 May 91 16:18:29 GMT References: <1991May18.172039.7477@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu> <1991May20.143242.10424@starnet.uucp> <21779@cbmvax.commodore Sender: news@pa.dec.com (News) Organization: Missionaria Phonibalonica Lines: 36 In-Reply-To: peter@cbmvax.commodore.com's message of 21 May 91 21:20:53 GMT In article <21779@cbmvax.commodore.com> peter@cbmvax.commodore.com (Peter Cherna) writes: If you are losing any sleep over whether continuing to call OpenWindow() is wrong now that OpenWindowTagList() exists, you're wasting your time. I would tend to believe that (old) OpenWindow() will continue to exist for a long time to come. How long is "a long time to come"? Five years? Ten years? Until development on the Amiga stops (which could well be shorter than the previous two)? And why have CBM employees said that those writing 2.0 code shouldn't be shouldn't be using OpenWindow()? It doesn't take much to realize that when stuff is made obsolete, it frequently means the new one is better, not that the old one is going away, unless there's some compelling reason. On the other hand, realizing what happens to systems that retain compatability for everything that they ever supported takes looking at one. I don't really recommend doing that; it's not a pretty sight. Even trying to stay source-level backwards compatable while adding modern features leads to odd things over the course of a decade. Planning for the best implies assuming that some of the backwards compatability hacks in 2.0 will vanish in the future. Once you assume any of them will vanish, you might as well assume all of them will vanish, and code accordingly. Of course, it may be that you'll have an AmigaDOS with 20 years of backwards compatability built into it. I won't - I'll have moved on to a modern OS (one that's less than 15 years old) years before that.