

XKCD "Workflow" on backwards compatibility - vog
https://xkcd.com/1172/

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vog
This comic makes a very good point about backwards compatibility:

You have to be always clear about how far you're willing to take it.

As far as I know, there aren't yet any standards on this. It is quite simple
for libraries, at least if they have an API spec: expect the documented
behaviour to stay, and the undocumented behaviour to change. However, for GUI
programs it's much harder, unless the manual covers description of the
complete visible behaviour. Such manuals might have been existing for software
in the past, and may exist for very common and widely used software in the
present (such as Emacs or PostgreSQL).

But most modern GUI software lacks this kind of documentation. Oh, and lots of
libraries lack a good documentation, too. So what to do about this? You can't
really change such software in a backward compatible way, because there is no
measure on how much of the current behaviour you have to conserve.

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fiatmoney
This is orthogonal to the point, but something I noticed in the link - why
does something like XKCD need HTTPS? Is it just a "secure by default" thing?

