[vtk-developers] IMPORTANT: Attribute data changes (vtkScalars, vtkVectors etc)

[Prabhu Ramachandran]

hi,

>>>>> "BG" == Berk Geveci <berk.geveci at kitware.com> writes:

    BG> As of VTK 4.0, vtkAttributeData and it's subclasses
    BG> (vtkScalars, vtkVectors, vtkNormals, vtkTensors, vtkTCoords)
    BG> will be deprecated. vtkDataArray and it's subclasses will
    BG> replace these classes. For more information, download
    BG> http://public.kitware.com/files/AttributeChanges.zip and look
    BG> at the pdf documents. The perl script included in that package
    BG> can be used to find out what kind of changes will have to be
    BG> made to port programs from VTK 3.2 or older to VTK 4.0.

If possible please dont do this.  It would be hard to expect users and
developers to deal with this.  If I develop code with 4.x I can no
longer expect 3.x users to be able to use VTK.  VTK 4.0 is not
released yet (atleast I see no announcement to that effect).  Doing
this will force developers to have two CVS trees and cause backward
compatibility hell.  Why not generate warning messages when someone
does use it.  Once 4.x becomes available (in terms of useable binaries
and source) you can remove it.

This will also trouble folks who create applications that are used by
others.  It is no easy task to expect everyone to just change their
release esp. when there arent readily available binaries/source.


Thanks,
prabhu