[plt-dev] PLaneT Question

So, if we stick with #lang scheme (and related languages) and .ss file
extensions, we can write V5 code that will load in V4. It is tempting to
just do that so users don't have to go to V5 to get the latest versions.
But, eventually we want everyone to switch anyway and delaying it doesn't
really buy them anything - the V4 versions are still in PLaneT and they will
just get those. Can anyone think of any reason not to do this?

So, my plan for my PLaneT packages is to move to the Racket language and
conventions (it will be THE convention at some point anyway), bump the major
version number (although this doesn't seem to be necessary), change the
required core version to "5.0", and release them to PLaneT. Am I missing
anything that might affect either PLT Scheme (V4) or Racket (V5) users
during the transition?

I have a number of users of my applications who are not developers (or even
programmers) and they're on Windows (XP, Vista, and 7), Mac OS X, and Linux.
Are there any other transition issues that I might need to plan for? For
example, the new installer installs into a Racket directory instead of PLT.
Should they uninstall PLT Scheme before installing Racket? Is this done
automatically? Should we have them manually remove their old PLT application
data folders for any reason? Will it make any difference if they do or not?
[So far, it looks like it SHOULD be relatively painless.]

Doug

On Wed, Jun 2, 2010 at 9:30 AM, Robby Findler
<robby at eecs.northwestern.edu>wrote:

> On Wed, Jun 2, 2010 at 9:13 AM, Doug Williams
> <m.douglas.williams at gmail.com> wrote:
> > If I have created (or updated) a PLaneT package that uses the new Racket
> > names (i.e., #lang racket, .rkt extensions, etc.), will that still be
> > loadable in V4? It would seem not, but I haven't tried it.
>
> Right: cannot.
>
> > Assuming that it
> > cannot, should there be a V5 repository (i.e., a package in the V5
> > repository can only be loaded into Racket, but Racket can use V4 or V5
> > packages)?
>
> A new repository would imply that all Racket programs are incompatible
> with version 4.0, but that's not the case, so I just extended the
> existing 4.x repository to allow 5.x version numbers too.
>
> > In lieu of that, should we restrict packages using the Racket
> > language by using (define required-core-version "5.0")?
>
> Right.
>
> Robby
>
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