Should we be so strict on maintaining backwards compatibility?

[Pedro Duque Vieira]

Hi,

I wanted to raise a question: "should we be so strict on maintaining
backwards compatibility?".
I'm seeing on this mailing list that maintaining backwards compatibility is
of utmost importance for Oracle.

The problem with maintaining backwards compatibility is that errors/bad
decisions done on the past, will remain in the future. And the more
releases are put out the bigger the problem with past mistakes will be.
Can't we compensate for introducing backwards incompatibility by releasing
detailed guides on migrating? Or even introducing automatic scripts for
migration (maybe even on netbeans releases)?

I prefer the pain of migrating code to the pain of having past mistakes
present forever. I will be much happier if I know that all the design
decisions present on JavaFX are the best possible to date.

Forgive me if this is a dumb question, I just wanted to raise the issue.
I'm really not fully aware of the costs vs gains on this.

Thanks, best regards,
--
Pedro Duque Vieira