{"id":319924,"date":"2015-03-25T10:37:08","date_gmt":"2015-03-25T09:37:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-rocket.me\/blog\/?p=378"},"modified":"2019-07-22T12:15:47","modified_gmt":"2019-07-22T10:15:47","slug":"backward-compatibility-isnt-good","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp-rocket.me\/blog\/backward-compatibility-isnt-good\/","title":{"rendered":"Backward Compatibility – Is It A Good Idea?"},"content":{"rendered":"

WP Rocket has been\u00a0backward compatible to WordPress 3.1 since version 1.0. We designed the plugin for almost everyone, even if you can’t update your website.<\/p>\n

Similarly,\u00a0WordPress itself is backward compatible to PHP 5.2.4.<\/p>\n

What is Backward Compatibility?<\/h2>\n

In cases where one piece of software relies on another piece of software (or other component) in order to function – such as how WordPress relies on PHP – backward compatibility means that you can still use a piece of software even if the other required components are not updated to the latest version.<\/p>\n

So you can still run WordPress even if your version of PHP is not up-to-date. Likewise you can still run WP Rocket even if your version of WordPress is not the absolute latest.<\/p>\n

The goal, when you develop something with backward compatibility in mind, is that your product\/service can be used by more people<\/strong>, even if they’re not using the latest\u00a0components your product\u00a0may\u00a0require.<\/p>\n

Sounds Reasonable, But Why is it\u00a0Not a Good Idea?<\/h2>\n

It sounds good – more people means more customers – all you have to do is to be sure that your code can be used in many previous versions and you have to find a fallback function or something to “patch” this lack.<\/p>\n

Why is this not so good? Because you\u00a0always have to check that what you’re\u00a0doing can be used with\u00a0older versions<\/strong>. So with every release it becomes more work to\u00a0maintain.<\/p>\n

Over time this creates a halting effect on the code that makes it nearly impossible to clean up and “make things better”.<\/p>\n

In regards to\u00a0WordPress, PHP 5.2.4 is not maintained and not recommended. So, even though\u00a0WordPress can actually work with 5.2.4, \u00a0I recommend you use PHP 5.4+.<\/p>\n

In the case of WP Rocket,\u00a0trying to make the auto update feature backward compatible<\/a> was a bad idea, and I\u00a0didn’t want to include all the code from WordPress 3.7.<\/p>\n

Forward Thinking, Forward Compatibility<\/h2>\n

I think that we’ll ease off about the backward compatibility and not worry about\u00a0trying to make everything work for a lower version of something else.<\/p>\n

Instead of thinking only about backward compatibility, we’ll try to think also about forward compatibility<\/em>, much more clever than just backward.<\/p>\n

Forward compatibility means that you’ll have in mind the future of the code, not just past and present<\/strong>. The goal is to avoid unnecessary\u00a0backward compatibility.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WP Rocket has been Backward Compatible to WordPress 3.1 since day 1. Let us explain our thoughts about this, and why we have all to think about Forward Compatibility too.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":410,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"kia_subtitle":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[62],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-319924","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-inside-wp-rocket"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nBackward Compatibility - Is It A Good Idea?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/wp-rocket.me\/blog\/backward-compatibility-isnt-good\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Backward Compatibility - Is It A Good Idea?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"WP Rocket has been Backward Compatible to WordPress 3.1 since day 1. 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