Re: NSMenu* and NSPopuUp* issues

[Serg Stoyan]

Hello Richard,

> On Wednesday, April 9, 2003, at 07:34  am, Serg Stoyan wrote:
> 
> > Hello Willem,
> >
> >> Richard Frith-Macdonald <richard@brainstorm.co.uk> writes:
> >>
> >>> On Tuesday, April 8, 2003, at 11:24  am, David Ayers wrote:
> >>>
> >>>> I haven't looked into how it is broke, but please fix it, and then
> >>>> ask all app maintainers to update thier nibs which they have saved
> >>>> since it was broken, before they announce an official release, if
> >>>> they use gnustep cvs.
> >>>
> >>> Assuming it actually is broken (I haven't checked personally) I
> >>> emphatically agree.
> >>
> >> Yes, it is.  I noticed a while ago and in a private mail notified
> >> Serg Stoyan.
> >
> >   I'll return horizontal menu code back.
> 
> That was not talking about horizontal menus ... it was referring to the 
> bug in coding/decoding.

  Ok, I see now.

> >> Although I think that most people are aware of the policy of
> >> encoding format to my knowledge it is quite easy to be not
> >> aware of it.
> >> So to be fair, I think Serg just wasn't told and probably
> >> not aware of the policy.
> >
> >   What policy?
> 
> Coding/decoding should *never* break backward compatibility.  Newer 
> versions of the
> library should always be able to decode archives created by older 
> versions.
> If this rule is not kept to, applications whose interfaces were created 
> using one version
> of the library won't work with the next version as the interface will 
> fail to load from the
> .gorm file!
> 
> Not really a policy so much as common sense ... it's not a good idea to 
> break backwards
> compatibilty at all, but in archiving it is particularly important as 
> an error in one class will
> stop the entire archive from being loaded, and if that archive 
> represents the entire user
> interface of an application then that disables the whole app!

  I see. Thanks Richard. Anyway I've got back horizontal menu code
  including encoding decoding part. So, if we'll decide to remove
  horizontal menu related code again, we should leave encoding/decoding
  part forever? Or maybe we should have policy placed on www.gnustep.org
  in "Developers" section?

-- 
Serg Stoyan