[Brad]

Originally Posted by lasto

cause they all to polite to complain and even if they dont complain it dont mean it aint annoying.
Instead of always bringing out a new version why dont u do add on packs that add more functionality ?

Because it complicates the process of writing the code. When you design a large application you make mistakes in the design that you will not catch until later down the road. The programming language will also mature and change over the years as well.

When you make a major version jump, say from version 2 to 3, or version 3.0 to 3.5, or version 3.5 to 4.0. You'll have a chance to re-write and fix "core" problems in your design. Fixing these "core" problems will break a lot of things elsewhere that depend on core functionality.

What I'm getting at is two major points;

1) Making major changes is a good thing. Software will always evolve over time just like everything else in the field of computing. If that bothers you you're in the wrong field.

2) Backwards compatibility is a bad thing most of the time. To offer 100% compatibility with third party code requires emulating old behavior of the software, sometimes even emulating "useful bugs" that third party code depends on. It's never perfect and there will always be a piece of third party code that won't run...do you change you backwards compatibility layer in that case to support that single piece of code? If you answered yes you're setting yourself up for bloated code and a battle you'll never win.