Tomorrow a new image format comes out (like it has many times over the years; consider WEBP for a reasonably new example). None of your applications supports it.
Suddenly you have to update everything before you can use it, and because it's like that for everyone, getting the new format into use is hard.
Except, your apps uses datatypes, so you just download a single datatype library and description, put it into the right directory, and suddenly your browser, your desktop publishing software, your paint program, your word processor, your image viewer all supports the new format and will happily load and/or save images from/to the new format.
Sounds familiar? Probably not, because it doesn't work like that on any modern platform. It did on the Amiga.
That's why datatypes are worth remembering.
As a demonstration of how this helps future-proof software, consider that most commercial Amiga software stopped receiving updates in the mid 90's, many of them before the advent of even png, and certainly before webp and similar. Yet all of the ones that supports datatypes for image access today support png and webp with no changes to the applications needed.
> isn't it fair to say that the Amiga had its day in the 80s and 90s, and that time is now past?
Of course it does, but that doesn't mean these concepts deserve to be forgotten.
Suddenly you have to update everything before you can use it, and because it's like that for everyone, getting the new format into use is hard.
Except, your apps uses datatypes, so you just download a single datatype library and description, put it into the right directory, and suddenly your browser, your desktop publishing software, your paint program, your word processor, your image viewer all supports the new format and will happily load and/or save images from/to the new format.
Sounds familiar? Probably not, because it doesn't work like that on any modern platform. It did on the Amiga.
That's why datatypes are worth remembering.
As a demonstration of how this helps future-proof software, consider that most commercial Amiga software stopped receiving updates in the mid 90's, many of them before the advent of even png, and certainly before webp and similar. Yet all of the ones that supports datatypes for image access today support png and webp with no changes to the applications needed.
> isn't it fair to say that the Amiga had its day in the 80s and 90s, and that time is now past?
Of course it does, but that doesn't mean these concepts deserve to be forgotten.