Quote - Yup, that's a major pain in various body parts. Preventing it from happening is quite hard to do, but at the very minimum it requires a very wel thought out set of APIs for the base app THAT DOES NOT CHANGE WITH EACH VERSION. And if new functionality is incorporated into the base app, a new API should be added to the existing one(s), in order not to break existing apps that use the older API.

It's not unlike the infamous COM DLL Hell. I've programmed COM components and it can be done right, but that requires self discipline on the part of the developer. You have to stick to the COM versioning rules, and there's nothing in the development enviroment that prevents you from deviating from those rules.

Ya, that plugin thing can be a real double edged sword, no doubt about it.  Now if you paid for the program and the plugins were free, then it probably wouldn't be nearly as much as an issue.  But as it is since the program is free and the plugins are all maintained by different developers, it's a real mixed bag as to what happens whent they upgrade.

Each new version runs the risk of breaking the old plugins, and every developer then has to update there plugin.  In the interim the user has no idea how long that will take, how well it will work, or how much it will cost for him to buy the upgraded plugin once it's available. 

This is one of the main reasons why I've steered clear of D|S, I disliked the interface at first glance, and I wasn't about to waste a lot of time getting comfortable with it under those circumstances. :)

-Never fear, RenderDog is near!  Oh wait, is that a chew toy?  Yup. ok, nevermind.. go back to fearing...