Re: RCS, again: another removed functionality: undo last-checkin

[Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>]

> Cc: monnier@iro.umontreal.ca, rms@gnu.org, stephen@xemacs.org, dak@gnu.org,
>  emacs-devel@gnu.org
> From: Dmitry Gutov <dgutov@yandex.ru>
> Date: Thu, 1 Oct 2015 15:54:21 +0300
> 
> The term "makes sense" usually doesn't take into account backward 
> compatibility.
> 
> If it did, your agreement with "we should be able to drop features that 
> don't make sense" is a no-op, because any existing feature would, by 
> definition, make sense. Right?

No.  Existing features might make no sense if (a) they didn't make
sense when introduced (it happens!), or (b) if the reason for their
existence is no longer valid, like a program that is no longer
available, or operation that is impossible with today's platforms, or
so clearly unused that there's no doubt it could be still useful to
anyone.

Breaking backward compatibility is about the worst crime package
maintainers could commit, in my opinion.  (I know it's not shared by
many of the others.)  It makes veteran users of a package feel like
second-class citizens whose needs and workflows can be disregarded all
too easily.