Re: [hybi] Versioning is a anti-pattern

[Greg Wilkins <[e-mail]>]

On 3 September 2010 16:47, James Graham <[e-mail]> wrote:
> On Fri, 3 Sep 2010, Greg Wilkins wrote:
>> The difference in protocol behaviour between these 3 versions is
>> significant and it would be neigh impossible for a server to service
>> the variety of clients deployed without a version. Supporting 3
>> versions of the protocol does complicate the server, but there is no
>> other choice as you cannot force web clients to upgrade (nor me to
>> remember the args to curl)
>
> So, to makw sure I understand you correctly, you are proposing that future
> clients and servers support *all* the versions of the draft that have ever
> seen non-trivial deployment (possibly including hixie-75, likely including
> hixie-76, and presumably including more future versions that happen to line
> up with significant client releases)?

James,

all I'm proposing at the moment is that we identify draft versions
while we are in draft.

However, in general, I expect that servers will need to support
multiple versions of the specification, even if they are not actually
identified with version numbers (or user-agents or heuristics or
whatever ).  That is just the reality of the situation - successful
servers must support a wide range of deployed clients and it takes
many years for clients with significant deployment to fade away
(although it is not as slow as it once was).

I would hope that we will never have the need for clients to have to
handle multiple versions.

cheers