Re: [Gretl-devel] functions vs commands (was Re: Octave support)
Allin Cottrell schrieb:
On Wed, 3 Mar 2010, Sven Schreiber wrote:
[Sorry, but I'll skip the > 1 quotation levels, since they get a
bit confusing here.]
> (I still don't buy the underlying argument, though...)
I think you may have mistaken Jack's point. I took him to be
saying that a "milestone release" that is mostly just backward
incompatible changes is likely to please few people and annoy
quite a number.
Sure; that's why I think help may be needed to ease the transition by
automating it as far as possible. BTW, I don't understand yet why it's
necessary to replace "end if", but I guess that's for another thread.
So the idea (or at least, my idea, but I think it's Jack's)
is
that if we're going to do a substantial clean-up we have to
sweeten the deal with some substantial new functionality. "It's
worth the bother of updating your old gretl scripts because look
what new gretl is offering!"
I'm just not sure this will work. I venture the guess that most users
use gretl for what it can do already, and they are not waiting
desparately for new features. (I'm guessing here, but I think it's an
educated guess: if people need a feature that gretl doesn't currently
offer, they will turn somewhere else to get their work done.) So what
utility will new features provide to the existing user base, especially
in the shorter term: zero! (up to a first approximation, and allow me to
exaggerate a bit). Especially since new features will tend to have more
bugs in the beginning.
So I don't think the compensating effect that you are talking about is
really there. If you worry about the existing user base getting annoyed
then minimize the annoyance; I think that would work better than try to
distract them with other candy.
good night (here in old Europe),
sven