Backwards compatibility of the run time environment (RTE)

[dthor]

A simple Idea, though I'm not sure how simple it will be to execute.

Idea:

Make run-time environments (RTEs) backwards compatable.

Example:

Allow a LV2010 executable to run on a computer that only has the LV2012 RTE installed.

Benefit:

Saves hard drive space and install time. The LV RTEs are 600mb or so. Yes, hard drive space is far from being expensive, but it's annoying having to set through 5 installs just so you can run programs from 8.5, 2009, 2010, 2011, and 2012.

[GregR]

Definitely much easier said than done. True backward compatibility means we can't change any existing behavior. We can only add new behavior. This would apply to all the callbacks used by VI code but would also apply to all front panel controls. Even if we allow some deviation with interactive behavior maintaining all previous programmatic APIs would cause the RTE to grow even faster than it does today. For people taking advantage of this, that would be a net win. For people using a single RTE, it would be bigger to support use cases they don't care about.

[Mark_Yedinak]

While I agree you may end up with multiple versions of the RTE on a machine an installer should only need to be concerned with installing the one which built the application. No need to install any other RTE. So, the only advantage I see to this is to save some disk space and with the price of space so low I don't really worry about it.