On Saturday, 10 March 2012 at 04:34:15 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:
Linux has had a habit of not breaking existing code from decades ago. I think that is one reason why it has millions of users.
If you want to see someone who takes compatibility seriously (and all the way to the bank), take a look at Microsoft Windows. I don't like developing Linux apps much, nor to a lot of professionals, because it's binary compatibility is a joke. Yeah, the kernel is decent about it, but the rest of the system sure as hell isn't. You're lucky if you can take a Linux binary and use it next month, and certainly not ten years from now. (For example, take dmd out of the box on CentOS. Won't work.) On Windows though, even if you relied on bugs twenty years ago, they bend over backward to keep your app functioning. It is really an amazing feat they've accomplished, both from technical and business perspectives, in doing this while still moving forward.
