Ichthyostega
8e250839f4
During the last months, a lot of gradual changes to policies and guidelines had been finalised and documented. Moreover, recent clarifications regarding memory management in the render engine will lead to a clearer definition of the »Vault« Layer's role, with some ''engine code'' expected to move down. On this occasion, I reworked relevant sections in the documentation to confirm the role that now falls to central parts of the overall architecture. Notably I decided to rename those parts related to the application backbone as »Vessel« — to underpin the more active and defining role they assumed.
44 lines
1.5 KiB
Text
44 lines
1.5 KiB
Text
PluginVersioningCases
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======================
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:Author: MichaelPloujnikov
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:Date Created: 200707121127
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:Date Changed: 200707160404
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:Count Changes: 46
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//MENU: label Plugin Version
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Compatibility matrix
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--------------------
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.Source compatibility
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[grid="rows"]
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`100`200`200~~~~
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*~CALLER~ \ ^CALLEE^**,OLD^**^,NEW^**^
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OLD,works,works but a recent interface definition must be available
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NEW,works,works
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~~~~
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.Binary compatibility
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[grid="rows"]
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`100`200`200~~~~
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*~CALLER~ \ ^CALLEE^**,OLD^**^,NEW^**^
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OLD,works,works
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NEW,caller gets "revision not sufficient" at runtime and should implement fallbacks,works
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~~~~
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^*^) CALLER is the user of an interface, CALLEE is the interface provider (usually a plugin)
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^**^) OLD means an initial revision, NEW means some later revision of an interface
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Observations
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------------
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Compiling a newer Plugin for some older main application release has some quirks (interface definitions are intended to be shipped with the main application). This should be rarely the case.
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When compiling, older Plugins should be updated to new interface revisions.
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Caller should provide a fallback to older interface revisions for binary compatibility.
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Generally, sources should just be properly maintained and updated to use the most recent interfaces revision.
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For binary compatibility everything will work well, provided that the caller kept proper fallback functionality for older interface revisions. Plugins which are independently distributed (packaged) in binary form don't need to be updated with every new main application release and just work.
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