Ansi vs Unicode API

[Walter Bright]

Steven Schveighoffer wrote:
> On Mon, 16 Nov 2009 15:05:48 -0500, Walter Bright 
> <newshound1 at digitalmars.com> wrote:
> 
>> Steven Schveighoffer wrote:
>>> On Mon, 16 Nov 2009 14:18:57 -0500, Walter Bright 
>>> <newshound1 at digitalmars.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Microsoft doesn't break support for older Windows when it comes out 
>>>> with newer ones. Supporting the full range of Windows is essentially 
>>>> trivial.
>>>  For the compiler, yes.  For library code, not so much.  If you want 
>>> to use newer features of the MS libraries, you must abandon support 
>>> older Windows.
>>
>> True, but that's an app issue, not a dev tools issue.
> 
> If Phobos depends on functionality not supported in Windows 98, then dmd 
> is pretty useless on win98 unless you provide a compatible standard 
> library.  Most normal users consider the standard library to be an 
> essential part of the compiler.

Phobos doesn't currently have any compatibility problems with Win95. If 
a new feature of Phobos did have such an issue, I would expect to 
document it for that feature.


> I was just 
> arguing your point about how Windows always provides backwards 
> compatibility.

Backward compatibility doesn't mean that the old systems have to support 
new features. It just means that the old features continue to work on 
the new systems. I have a lot of software built for Win95 that still 
works fine <g>. Even the DOS programs still work.