Foundation controversy.

[Scott Anguish]

Armin Retzko wrote

> PS: The NeXT Third Party Software Catalog (Spring or Winter '93)  
says that
>
>     Diagram and other Lighthouse Apps use the Foundation Classes.
>     But that was even before NS 3.2 was in the press.
>     Why did those apps run on NS 3.0 or 3.1?
>

	Foundation Classes are a Lighthouse Product
	Foundation Kit is a Next product.

	Different beasties.

On writing for older OS versions..

	There are Mac apps that require System 7.x and don't work  
right under older versions...  the pit that Apple has dug for  
themselves and developers in this respect (System 7, and of late  
Quickdraw GX) means that you can't get good apps that take advantage  
of alot of the new features for months if not a year or more after  
they finally release...

	Even still, inspite of the fact that Quickdraw GX is free  
as I recall, developers still have to use the old Quickdraw because  
there are those that won't upgrade.  My best friend is a developer  
on an award winning Mac CAD package, and even with their latest  
re-write they can't use the newest system stuff thats been out for  
months because it won't work on older versions..

	I think most NEXTSTEP developers are likely to be concerned  
that their apps work with modern versions of the OS, and not  
versions that are 3? years old now...

	On the other hand, NeXT is careful to make sure that their  
new versions have good backwards compatiblity for applications, so  
that old apps still work... In this respect, NeXT is kicking  
everyone's ass up and down the block.  The fact that I can yank out  
an old .9 compiled app and it just runs on 3.2/3.3 is amazing...   
Its hard to find Mac software from System 1.0 that still runs on  
System 6 let alone System 7.

	Next has made the Foundation Kit libs available to people  
who don't buy EOF, but only as of User 3.3.  Considering when they  
did this, and that it was likely in response to user pressure, they  
did the 'right thing'.


	Scott

	(Whose 3 month old Photoshop 3.0 won't run on Win95...:-(  )