I was just reading an Old New Thing blog entry about compatibility. I get the point that Raymond is making about compatibility. It reminds me of a lot of conversations that we have in building 42.

I talk to folks with the same proposal of pulling out the 'compat crap' to make the product better. I have two thoughts on that:

• We'll be having this same conversation one release from now when we've implemented and shipped another set of designs that you don't like, when looked at in hind-sight
• There are a ton of folks that have invested a ton of time and their livelihood into the apps that they've bet on our platform. What do you want me to tell them?

Compatibility is feature number 1. Without it, you don't have a product, at least for very long.