Graeme said:
It would seem that MS either doesn't trust .Net or doesn't find it as useful
as their marketing would like users to think it is.
:
You misunderstand (and Microsoft's "naming" doesn't help).
In the .NET world, version numbers are forever. Newer versions do not
obsolete older versions. Older versions are retained forever to run
code developed and tested on them.
This is Microsoft's latest attempt to resolve "DLL hell", in which
hidden dependencies on, for example, "bugs" in an older implementation
of a DLL cause using applications to malfunction when the DLL is updated
to a newer "corrected" version.
There is no way for Microsoft to ensure that all older pieces of
software, tested in an older environment, will run correctly on a
newer version of the "same" environment without enforcing rigourous
architectural control over the interfaces and functionality for both
the environment (hard, but doable) and all the applications that use
it (not doable without a costly, time-consuming certification program
for all applications).
So their pragamatic (but confusing) solution is to keep all older
versions of an environment active to support all older apps.
It's a hard problem, and a relatively chaotic market that would not
accept any increased rigorousness in the development and certification
process.
The confusing thing is that in the past, a higher version number of
a particular named piece of software meant "supercedes", not simply
"is later than".
-michael
Home page:
http://members.aol.com/MJMahon/
"The wastebasket is our most important design
tool--and it's seriously underused."
