[nonethewiser]

> I generally won’t remove a property, but mark it as obsolete and stop using it.

Presumably because loading will break?

> - If I’ve added a new Boolean property, I’d tend to name it such that it defaults to false, or if it must default to true, have it stored in a nullable boolean, and if it loads as null (from an older instance of the type), set it to the default.

Why?

[eropple]

`default(Boolean)` is false, so you can load an old object and it'll substitute the default, rather than having to throw an error on a missing property. You could do the same with, say, a new Int32 field, so long as it should default to zero.

Similarly, `default(Nullable<Boolean>)` is (wait for it) null, so you can do "oldVal ?? true".

[LeonB]

(I meant to respond to the gp comment here, soz. I agree with everything the parent comment says.)

> Presumably because loading will break?

I think the object will still load ok, I’m not sure if it would break because it’s been so long since I was in a scenario where I wanted to really delete a property. Normally when I make it obsolete there is also some new property or properties that have replaced it. When loading the object, if the (now obsolete) property is not null, I translate its value into the new property/ies (I.e., “migrate” it into the new properties), then null out the old property value, so that the migration only happens that one time.

I guess using something allegedly “simple”, over a long time, only appears simple because you will slowly internalise any idioms you’re using, and they don’t take much thought anymore.

Looking back — I’ve used this pattern for over 20 years, across various platforms. I’ve had a backing source that is anything from xml files to json to sqlite to in memory (for rapid tests) in a few languages. Things that seem natural or intuitive (to me) at this point are just habits that are rusted on, whether good or bad.

Sometimes I start building fast indexing systems on top of it, or archiving systems or record versioning… and the better tool would be to switch to a db or to a more full featured key value store. But it’s such a lot of fun!