Editing Contributing new programs to Madagascar (section)

==Backward compatibility features==
If you introduce or notice a feature that is used solely for backwards compatibility with an old version of a dependency, please document it here, so that the feature can be eliminated when the Madagascar community stops supporting that version of that dependency<ref>This could be more elegantly done by using a special string to flag a backwards compatibility comment in the code, then have the documentation builder build this list automatically. This would make it more likely for this page to be kept in synch with the codebase.</ref>.

===Python 2.2 and older===
* In <tt>framework/rsfdoc.py</tt>: Everything in the <tt>have_datetime_module=False</tt> branches

===Python 2.3 and older===
* In <tt>configure.py</tt>: Everything in the <tt>have_subprocess=False</tt> branches
* In <tt>configure.py</tt>: See code after comment "For Py 2.4 and up this can be done more elegantly..."
* In <tt>user/ivlad/ivlad.py</tt>: Everything in the <tt>have_subprocess=False</tt> branches
* The entire <tt>api/python/rsfbak.py</tt> (also needed on systems which do not have recent versions of numpy ''and'' SWIG)
===Python 2.4 and older===
* try (try...except)... finally construct instead of try... except... finally in <tt>framework/rsfdoc.py</tt>