[glob2-devel] Reverse Compatibility

[Bradley Arsenault]

I'm looking to do some major re-designing in code related to
SessionGame and SessionInfo (the map and game headers). This isn't
particularly easy, the Session code is at the core of the Engine and
file-save format.

So I'm looking at peoples opinions related to reverse compatibility.
If we want a new, clean coded engine, at some point we are going to
break reverse compatibility. Remaking map and game initialization code
would be one of those things. All previous game saves and maps would
be rendered useless.

It should be possible to do a conversion (somehow), but allot of this
engine code will be refactored, and the end-user probably won't be
able to easily convert his/her games.

I'm thinking about this mainly because there isn't really a good place
to put something like team alliances that can be set before the game.
Its certainly possible to implement this, but it would be yet another
hacked in feature. I considered putting it into BaseTeam, only to
realize BaseTeam was a static style object of the map, rather than a
dynamic object of the game.

Backwards compatibility is really the only thing keeping me from
starting fresh, deleting much of the old code like I did with the unit
allocation system. In this case, If i'm not very carefull, all usage
of previous maps could be eliminated. This is half the the problem,
backwards compatibility is keeping us from implementing a completely
new design. Glob2 is sort of a victim of its own success.

Anyhow, I just want to gather some opinion on the subject before I
begin anything drastic.

--
Really. I'm not lieing. Bradley Arsenault.