[Sugar-devel] Datastore shared between 0.84 and 0.86 systems

[Jonas Smedegaard]

Hi,

I guess that if a user creates a sugar environment (i.e. ~/.sugar) using 
0.84 or older and then switches to 0.86 then the datastore is updated.

But what happens the other way around?  Is the data usable, or does it 
get corrupted, or does it maybe get moved off so is experienced as lost 
by the user?

I ask because I consider shipping next stable Debian release with *both* 
0.84 and 0.86 (and possibly also 0.87 or 0.88).  Only a single Sucrose 
branch can be installed at once, but an admin can relatively easy swith 
from one to another, and then back again - wreaking havoc for users if 
the system does not sanely handle it.

Also imagine the case of diskless clients offered the choice of multiple 
appliation servers running different versions of Sucrose, all using same 
/home NFS storage.

In the document world, it is often used to add a version hint.  I know 
that the DtP application Scribus handles not only upgrades from 1.3.1- 
and 1.3.2-produced documents to the newer 1.3.3 (which used a slightly 
different file format), but also the older versions properly identifies 
too *new* documents and refuses to open them, instead informing about 
the version mismatch.


Even if current 0.84 (and 0.82!) does not currently implement version 
checking, I would very much appreciate if such functionality was added 
now as a bugfix release.


Hope you see the point of this, and that it is easy to implement - most 
easy being just replying "we thought of that ages ago and it already 
works sanely!" :-)


Kind regards,

  - Jonas

-- 
* Jonas Smedegaard - idealist & Internet-arkitekt
* Tlf.: +45 40843136  Website: http://dr.jones.dk/

  [x] quote me freely  [ ] ask before reusing  [ ] keep private
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