| Well, sure. But that’s the issue: What if you are writing the third party API, what if you are writing the firmware of a Washing Machine which is sold with lifetime guarantee*? (up to 99 years or death of buyer, whichever happens first), what if you write feature where every change has to be reviewed and costs millions? People expect from quality software what they expect from a quality washing machine, meaning that they buy it once, never have to touch it again, and it will always work and never change. Except for some minor features added at some point. But removing or changing features? Never. This is true for users (remember how many people complained about Windows 8 unusual interface?) and for other developers (How many people go all crazy every time Google kills yet another service, or removes another API, or changes their API syntax?). Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. But, effectively, I’m asking for perfect backwards compatibility. And that is rarely possible in systems where the software defines the documentation, instead of the other way round. |