Marc Andreessen: "That's a big deal, that's a very big deal. It's a very serious commitment for a company. Apple's had this commitment, Microsoft's had this commitment. It's what's called a commitment to backwards compatability. So you have to commit to never break anything. So you load up Windows Vista and it run the original Visicalc from thirty years ago, which was the original killer app on the PC, the original spreadsheet. So that is a long term institutional commitment, that takes a very serious company to be able to do."
Backwards compatibility is commitment
- February 26, 2009
- Posted by: dehora
5 Comments
Um - there probably was VisiCalc for the PC, but the original VisiCalc was on the Apple II. Lotus 1-2-3 was the killer spreadsheet for the PC.
It's not that drastic, I guess, since Virtual II and other things are out there, but it kind of makes the point sound... strange.
Best blog series on that topic is chromatic's modern perl programming one.
That - and Apple has certainly broken with any sort deep backwards compatibility. OS X signaled a sea change - and while the emulation worked (mostly) it was imperfect and has stopped being improved. And OS X is no longer released for the PPC (not a big deal, as hardware requirements change).
Some companies make decisions to break backward compatibility and benefit from that. There can be some point at which you have to let go. One may argue that large companies are _forced_ to keep backward compatibility or they risk a big outcry. But keeping this commitment may actually stifle the innovation.
Whether it's strategic aside, I don't think we should underestimate how easy it is to break backwards compatibility. It requires serious discipline to be able roll code without breaking users.