Library Updates and the Real World
Every time they release an update to prototype, I drool a little as I read the changelog. This is especially true of their latest release. The problem is that when working on a project that has tens of thousands of lines of code, it’s not really a reasonable plan to go back and update everything for the latest version of the library. So, I end up watching all the new hotness from the sidelines.
It seems to me that the projects that create these libraries are sympathetic to this problem. Documentation for the old version seems to go down almost immediately and is supplanted by the new version. That’s great for people on the bleeding edge, but what about use poor folks that are too invested in the old version to upgrade on day one? This is especially irritating in some discussion groups where the answer to any question is always “why are you using that version? just upgrade your code.”