Build for Classic

[Richard Gaskin]

Richmond wrote:

 > in fact, until lots of people stop using the following
 > operating systems we need to keep hammering ar
 > RunRev's doors

It seems the hammer has already made sufficient noise; perhaps Judy 
missed Kevin's post on this from the 21st:

    ...we promised one final classic version to our users
    some time ago.  2.7.5 was the version this was to be
    in and this has been renamed to 2.9. We didn't promise
    this within a specific timescale and we made a public
    announcement to the effect that 2.7.5 has been renamed 2.9.

    It remains our intention to do a classic build with 2.9.
    That was the last public statement we made on this.

    There is a caveat with the classic build. We have encountered
    technical problems working with the classic port we didn't
    expect when we made the original announcement. We looked at
    this not too long ago and because of changes we have made
    its become much more difficult to update the port.  So there
    is a risk that when we work on classic for 2.9, it will prove
    impossible. We are unable to devote weeks of engineering to
    resolving any "impossible" problem relating to this port.

    I can promise you though that will make a solid attempt to
    produce a workable classic version for 2.9 within a
    reasonable engineering timeframe.

    If we can't, it will be because the engineering issues have
    become insurmountable since the point at which we resolved
    to do this.  In which case we would make an announcement of
    that with a full explanation at the time. Hopefully though
    the engineers will be able to resolve this issue within a
    reasonable period of time and we will do a successful final
    build, fulfill our obligation and move on.

The full text of his post is available at:
<http://lists.runrev.com/pipermail/use-revolution/2007-May/098188.html>

Whether or not RunRev is able to deliver a new build for Classic, to 
their credit they have updated their Classic engine more recently than 
Apple has updated that OS itself.

The one thing we know about Classic is that it's not a moving target. 
It's frozen in time, and if the Rev Classic engine became frozen as well 
the v2.6.1 engine would continue to run there in perpetuity.

Many of the features added since v2.6.1 involve things that aren't 
relevant to Classic anyway, relating to compositing, Vista, Universal 
Binary, etc.  And even if a new Classic build becomes available, it 
won't be but a few weeks until the version after that, meaning we'll be 
back where we are right now, using an older version for Classic and the 
current one for everything else.

So looking at the big picture, where we are at the moment is close to 
the very best we might expect for the future, and not all that bad.  The 
last Rev engine for Classic continues to run there, and will as long as 
the OS does.

Some have expressed a desire to see at least some bug fixes implemented 
for the Classic engine, and while that's certainly a healthy goal the 
v2.6.1 engine was among the most solid builds the company ever product 
so the bug count is relatively low, and we have yet to hear of how any 
specific bugs are affecting specific projects.

If there are specific issues affecting delivery in Classic, it would be 
helpful to note them here so the folks on this list can help find 
alternate solutions to keep these projects on track.

-- 
  Richard Gaskin
  Managing Editor, revJournal
  _______________________________________________________
  Rev tips, tutorials and more: http://www.revJournal.com