[Sugar-devel] Backwards compatibility for new activity versions

[Gary Martin]

On 24 May 2011, at 03:07, Rafael Ortiz <rafael at activitycentral.com> wrote:

> On Mon, May 23, 2011 at 8:59 PM, Walter Bender <walter.bender at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> 
> On Mon, May 23, 2011 at 9:54 PM, Sridhar Dhanapalan <sridhar at laptop.org.au> wrote:
> Sugar 0.86 introduced a change in the toolbar API. While beneficial
> overall, this change means that activities coded for the new API do
> not run on older versions of Sugar. Since most XOs out there use Sugar
> 0.84 or earlier, this poses a considerable problem.
> 
> Is there a recommended path for developers to make their code work
> with both the old and the new toolbar API?
> 
> I've had some developers approach me about coding for our XOs and I
> have to give them two options[0]:
> 
>  1. code for newer versions of Sugar if they're happy with the code
> not running on our XOs for the next year (it'll take a while for our
> Dextrose-based release to actually be implemented in the field by
> teachers)
>  2. code for Sugar 0.84 , then consider updating the code later
> 
> It would be nice if I could give them one clear answer that works
> regardless of the version of Sugar.
> 
> 3. Code for both. It is little extra work. Right now we have about a 50-50 split in the community re old- vs new-style toolbars. It would be a shame to exclude 1 million kids,
> 
> A simple activity that codes for both is Portfolio. (git.sugarlabs.org/portfolio).
> 
> 
> I also recommend to code for both, Gonzalo ,Sebastian and Walter have been coding to add backward compatibility for the most important activities, there are various examples you can look at. Among them stopwatch, distance and maze.

+1 on coding support for both, some more examples are Moon, Calculate, Labyrinth.

--Gary

> 
> -walter 
> 
> Thanks,
> Sridhar
> 
> 
> [0] http://dev.laptop.org.au/projects/xo-au/wiki/Development
> 
> 
> Sridhar Dhanapalan
> Technical Manager
> One Laptop per Child Australia
> M: +61 425 239 701
> E: sridhar at laptop.org.au
> A: G.P.O. Box 731
>      Sydney, NSW 2001
> W: www.laptop.org.au
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> 
> 
> -- 
> Walter Bender
> Sugar Labs
> http://www.sugarlabs.org
> 
> 
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