KDE3 apps running in a KDE4-modified environment

[Thiago Macieira]

Mauricio Piacentini wrote:
>Of course, this change can be a nightmare for very complex apps, but
>maybe in this case the group could be changed if sharing the same config
>is desireable, and the current versions are not prepared to deal with
>unexpected configuration values.

That depends on the config file in question: is it something shared 
between two different applications, one of which can be a KDE 3 one and 
the other a KDE 4?

If so, the file must remain compatible, with new entries being added and 
the older ones deprecated. In all cases, it must be readable by the older 
version -- though maybe we'll see some degraded functionality (we should 
avoid it, though).

If it's for the same application, we don't have to support incompatible 
versions. We have scripts to upgrade the config files before the 
application is first run, so it doesn't have to deal with old config file 
formats. 

As a consequence, and what I have said before more than once: we do not 
support downgrading applications.

>We may even consider this behavior of crashing with updated values to be
>a bug in some of the current applications, don't you agree? The apps
>should ideally not crash when they are fed inconsistent config values,
>they should just revert to using sane defaults. Maybe something to look
>for in the future.

Crashing is always a bug.

-- 
  Thiago Macieira  -  thiago (AT) macieira.info - thiago (AT) kde.org
    PGP/GPG: 0x6EF45358; fingerprint:
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