=====================
 Development Roadmap
=====================

.. epigraph::

   Roads?  Where we're going, we don't need roads. 

   -- Dr Emmett Brown, `Back To The Future`__

   __ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088763

This section contains a few notes and ideas about possible future
development of |PD|.  There's no definite date for any of this; most of my
itch has been scratched by what already exists, and development mode is
turning into maintenance mode.

Compatibility with original Ditz
================================

As of version 0.8, |PD| is pretty much roundtrip-compatible with the
original Ditz.  If the original were still being developed, I guess I'd try
to keep in step with it.  But it's not.  So the question is, what price
compatibility?

I think |PD| being able to read original Ditz databases is important.  I'm
not sure about the other direction: once a database has migrated to |PD|, I
don't see a use-case for going back again.

Extending the file formats
==========================

The issue-claiming feature was added recently; this involved adding a new
'claimer' attribute to issues.  The latest |PD| handles the case where this
attribute doesn't exist, but old versions of |PD| will almost certainly
barf on issues that do have it.  The 'fix' is to upgrade |PD|, but I think
the failure should be more graceful than that.  Needs some more thought.