Experimental Physics and
Industrial Control System

"J. Lewis Muir via Tech-talk" <[email protected]> · Wed, 2 Oct 2019 12:25:32 -0500

On 10/02, Ralph Lange via Tech-talk wrote:
> This thread is about older versions of Base. (And I wonder why Dirk is
> "always" installing old Base versions.)

:-) I don't know, but I would bet it's because change is the enemy of
reliability!  Each EPICS major and minor version introduces change that
breaks backward compatibility and introduces new features.  Even though
I wish for fewer backward-compatible-breaking changes, I do understand
and appreciate the effort to improve EPICS.  Still, moving to a new
EPICS major or minor version requires testing and fixing problems that
arise.  By remaining on the same EPICS major or minor version (i.e.,
upgrading along the patch version only), you avoid this pain.

I'm reminded of this IEEE Spectrum article which mentions the great
lengths engineers went to in order to not change some of their systems
on early Soyuz spacecraft:

  https://spectrum.ieee.org/view-from-the-valley/aerospace/space-flight/charles-simonyi-checks-out-the-soyuz-user-interface-on-the-way-to-space

Lewis

Experimental Physics and Industrial Control System

Experimental Physics and
Industrial Control System