Re: Further CC-mode changes

[David Kastrup]

"Stephen J. Turnbull" <address@hidden> writes:

> Stefan Monnier writes:
>
>  > The issue is not "backward compatibility" but *how* to get it.
>
> Evidently not for Glenn, David, and IIRC RMS, though.  I think in
> fact you are in a minority in the Emacs leadership[1] when it comes
> to backwards compatibility.

You are mixing up two entirely different topics under the title of
"backward" compatibility.

One thing is how long user-provided code should be expected to continue
working in new Emacs versions.  How long should old interfaces leading
to more cumbersome code continue to be provided?

But that's not what we are talking about here _at_ _all_.  Quite the
contrary.  The answer to that has more or less been resolved to "pretty
long" and that makes the actual question even possible:

And that question is: how long should new code intended for Emacs
refrain from relying on new interfaces and new features which have been
created for a reason?  And the answer "15 years because XEmacs won't
upgrade" is not satisfactory.  At some point of time, people who are
happy with a 15 year old Emacs variant will have to face updating either
XEmacs, or backporting software they care for, or just using older
versions of software on XEmacs.

-- 
David Kastrup