[dev] using some backported horde 2.x functionality in IMP 3.x

[Jon Parise]

On Fri, Oct 25, 2002 at 03:57:25PM -0400, Chuck Hagenbuch wrote:

> If I need to backport some functionality from IMP HEAD to IMP RELENG_3, and
> it has to rely on code that was not in Horde 2.0, do I _have_ to bundle
> those libraries into IMP 3.x? Or would it be acceptable if the feature was
> controlled by a configuration setting, so that the code _could_ run with
> Horde 2.0, but would require a later release (2.2, I guess) if you wanted to
> turn the feature on?
 
I think the new code should check HORDE_VERSION and enable itself
conditionally.  Our version scheme should work with version_compare(),
so the comparison should be pretty cheap, too.

This would serve two purposes:

    1.  It would keep the code between HEAD and RELENG_? more closely
        aligned.
    2.  It will encourage users wanting the new functionality to also
        upgrade their Horde installation.

In my opinion, backwards compatibility is all about not breaking
existing code, but requiring a newer version of some dependency
library in order to enable a new feature is okay.

-- 
Jon Parise (jon@horde.org) :: The Horde Project (http://horde.org/)