Handling changes in new releases

[Bobko]

Well, I love AutoIt 3 - yet when a Install new release, I just go through period of frustration. Code that worked yesterday, does not work today - UDF function ABC was discontinued - changed, deleted, replaced with .?. something else, some other function... Which one? How do I find out? New release notes are not very detailed, and the Googling doesn't always work...

Would it be too difficult to publish somewhere a list of OLD functions and the matching NEW ones, intended to replace them? Or leave the old functions in the new UDF include file, marked as "Obsolete - do not used in new development"?  Or even better, report them during Syntax Check as "Obsolete, replace with XYZ" ?  Or at least change the Help file, so that the F1 (Help) on the old function ABC indicates that it is obsolete, and that new replacement is XYZ, and perhaps even indicate changes needed to apply to the old code when replacing the old function with the new one?  I think it would make life of many users much easier, or am I mistaken?

My latest source of frustration is upgrade from AutoIt 3.3.10 to 3.3.12, namely its new Excel.au3 include UDF. Functions just disappeared, with no hints of what to replace them with, no comments in the code of the include file that would shed any light on what to do, what's happening... Or am I missing something obvious?  How do others deal with it?

[Jos]

Did you see and check the Script-breaking changes we always publish with the new releases?
The Excel changes are mentioned and explained.

Jos

Edited May 5, 2015 by Jos

[Bobko]

Hi Jos,
thanks for your reply. Did I see the changes? Yes and no - I did not dig deep enough into the new release material. After your email, I managed to go from "History" (https://www.autoitscript.com/autoit3/docs/history.htm), then the link "IMPORTANT: see here..." sent me to "Script Breaking Changes in Recent Versions" (https://www.autoitscript.com/autoit3/docs/script_breaking_changes.htm), which finally sent me to changes to Excel.au3(https://www.autoitscript.com/autoit3/docs/script_breaking_changes_excel_udf.htm). Quite deep in the hierarchy.

I still think that an "Obsolete - replace with..." in the Help file, or as an error message from syntax check would be very handy and appreciated feature.

As an alternative, I imagine it should be possible to pack all those old functions into an UDF - say, "Obsolete.au3" - that one could add to includes to keep the old code  functioning little longer, without need to spend much time on fixing something that used to work just fine before.  Then again, there is nothing preventing me to build such a collection myself, is there...

[JLogan3o13]

As an alternative, I imagine it should be possible to pack all those old functions into an UDF - say, "Obsolete.au3" - that one could add to includes to keep the old code  functioning little longer, without need to spend much time on fixing something that used to work just fine before.  Then again, there is nothing preventing me to build such a collection myself, is there...

​Think about what a mess this would create! How many versions of Obsolete UDFs would you then expect the DEVs to support, 1? 3? all the way back to 1.0.0? Take a moment to peruse some of the forum threads regarding the updates Jon and team make to the product already, and the herculean effort that goes into it. To then support all the obsolete functions as well would not be reasonable.

As you say, you can always do this for yourself. Or, you could just spend 10 minutes reading through the ChangeLog before you upgrade, and modify your scripts

[Jos]

Hi Jos,
thanks for your reply. Did I see the changes? Yes and no - I did not dig deep enough into the new release material. After your email, I managed to go from "History" (https://www.autoitscript.com/autoit3/docs/history.htm), then the link "IMPORTANT: see here..." sent me to "Script Breaking Changes in Recent Versions" (https://www.autoitscript.com/autoit3/docs/script_breaking_changes.htm), which finally sent me to changes to Excel.au3(https://www.autoitscript.com/autoit3/docs/script_breaking_changes_excel_udf.htm). Quite deep in the hierarchy.

​I am glad you see the logic/hierarchy in the way we publish it and am not so sure it can be done efficiently in a different way.
Us humans have the tendency to just go for it in stead of first reading the release notes, and I am often one of them.
Hope you agree that putting it at the top of the release notes really should trigger anybodies attention in the proper way.... right?

Jos