On Wednesday 28 January 2009 18:21:59 M Harris wrote:
On Tuesday 27 January 2009 10:16, Boris Epstein wrote:
Anyways, I am sure it is easy and I just missed the obvious. Any help much appreciated.
The problem (white elephant in the middle of the list) that everyone is ignoring here is that the KDE folks don't understand regression testing,
A change in functionality that is *by design* is *not* a regression. A regression is when something that previously worked is now *unintentionally* broken due to an update or change that had an adverse affect (i.e. introduced a new bug), either directly or indirectly. In the case of functionality changes, the test suite to test that functionality also necessarily changes. This is not part of regression testing. Regression testing is the continual re-running of previously passed tests to ensure that they continue to pass with each update or group of updates. Yes, I have had experience in software testing (both manual and automated) in a professional capacity so I have some idea of what I'm talking about here.
nor do they understand any semblance of backward compatibility responsibility.
That is a different issue. It is the designers choice whether backwards compatibility is provided or not. In the case of a complete rewrite, sometimes backwards compatibility has to be sacrificed in order to provide new and/or improved functionality. Of course, the definition of "improved" is somewhat subjective and is a debate that I will not enter into here.
Its fine to want to build a new KDE (say complete rewrite) but the new version needs to provide regression and compatibility. Otherwise, the userbase is going to be VERY unhappy.
And as has been done to death here on many a previous thread,it is the developers' prerogative to design and write the new version as he/she/they see fit; it is the user's choice whether or not to embrace the new version in preference to the old. Perhaps the biggest mistake was to call the new version KDE4 - maybe they should have been more aggressive with the "new" thing and called it KDE-NG (for Next Generation) to make it clear that it really is a new thing and not simply an incremental upgrade from the previous version. Still, that's another debate that is inappropriate here. Regards, Rodney. -- =================================================== Rodney Baker VK5ZTV rodney.baker@iinet.net.au ===================================================