Note that I don't have the answers to all the questions posed here - I'm posting them in response to comments from people who appear to have just enough programming knowledge/experience to sound arrogant (if you've been insulted, stop reading now - but that's how I see it).
Unless your programming experience includes multi-programmer projects and coordination with other programmers/products in distant locations, you probably don't understand all that's involved in changing the database format in a data-driven application (such as Legacy). Since this isn't a software development forum, I will make just this one post of some "food for thought". ***Please take any further discussion to a more appropriate forum.*** The changes to Legacy as a STAND-ALONE program might not be much larger than some of the version-to-version changes that have been done in the past. HOWEVER, much of the difficulty would be the incorporation of those changes into the dozens of add-on programs (some from Legacy, some from third parties). It can be done, but the process takes planning and coordinating on many levels. One client for whom I create PDA and Windows software called recently to say that one of my Windows programs was displaying incorrect data. Since there had been no changes in that program in a year, I had them do some "in house" research. They have a new programmer, who used a different language to create the latest version of their firmware (with Bluetooth support), which he described as "works exactly like the previous version" - except that it put stray bytes into certain data records. I was not asked to check whether the new hardware performed exactly like the old hardware - I just got the "*your* software is wrong" message. This is exactly the situation that the developers of Legacy add-ons would face without adequate advance notification. How many users would blame the not-yet-updated add-on compared to the number who would say "I upgraded to Legacy YY and it broke <some program>" and yell at Support? (I did corporate PC support for several years - I know the answer to this one.) For each requested relationship change in Legacy (adoption, foster child, whatever), how many producers of Legacy add-on products would need advance notice of the database changes? How much notice would each of them need? 3 months? 6 months? 1 year? The time depends on the level of difficulty and the available resources. A number of add-on tools probably come from one-person organizations - Joe Programmer developed something for personal use, then made it available for others. For compatibility with other programs, most of us use GEDCOM, at least occasionally. Does GEDCOM correctly handle non-traditional relationships? Would changing Legacy's capabilities mean that you could only create a "standard" GEDCOM that is readable by other software if you leave out the non-traditional relationships? If you don't know the answers to these questions, plese do some research before commenting on this post. ***Please take any further discussion to a more appropriate forum.*** If you don't know of a proper forum, you can create one for free on yahoo. I will NOT respond to comments made in this forum. Who am I to speak? My programming experience started with C on PDP-11 UNIX plus MS-DOS and OS-9, and has included C++, Javascript, numerous dialects of Basic on multiple platforms, several dialects of SQL, ASP, a little php, along with Access conversion to SQLServer, Excel interfaces to Sybase/Informix/MySQL, and a Word interface to MySQL. Team sizes have been just me to 8 people. User bases have ranged from 1 to 500 (ASP/Javascript/SQLServer site for a NATO project) to unknown (ASP/Access site for a political candidate). John Legacy User Group guidelines: http://www.LegacyFamilyTree.com/Etiquette.asp Archived messages: http://www.mail-archive.com/legacyusergroup@legacyfamilytree.com/ Online technical support: http://www.LegacyFamilyTree.com/Help.asp To unsubscribe: http://www.LegacyFamilyTree.com/LegacyLists.asp
