🚀 go-pugleaf

On Sun, 11 Oct 98 21:40:41 GMT, Phil Hunt <philh@vision25.demon.co.uk> posted:
>In article <362110c7.23159181@news.concentric.net>
>           darrow@oneillaw.com "M O'Neill" writes:
>> clearly formats have to change to take new features into account.  
>
>Rubbish. It would be quite easy to devise a format that allows 
>new features to be added, but still lets old software read the new
>files, igniring new features where necessary. In fast Microsoft has
>such a format, it is called rtf. 
>
>The reason this isn't the default format for Word is so that MS can
>shaft their customers.

Well, you're both at least partly right.

On the one hand, it makes sense to build formats that are at least
*somewhat* extensible so that substantial rearchitecture isn't necessary for
every little change that may take place.

This is *certainly* valuable when a system (that uses the data format) is
undergoing incremental/evolutionary changes.  Word is a software system that
could be characterized in this fashion.

However.  If a system is undergoing *revolutionary* changes, it may well be
appropriate for there to be similarly "revolutionary" changes to data
formats.

-- 
Those who do not understand Unix are condemned to reinvent it, poorly. 	
-- Henry Spencer          <http://www.hex.net/~cbbrowne/lsf.html>
cbbrowne@hex.net - "What have you contributed to Linux today?..."