I do read this thread, and I'm very receptive to the "oh-no-please-dont-break-backward-compatibility-again" complaints.

The best course of action is (1) to try to find help on the mailing list for new functions to ease the migration to the new syntactic rules (there is one already in the release notes) and (2) to raise your voice on the mailing list and support those who share the same view.

I've been a release manager for 9.0, not the real maintainer, so things may have slipped in directions I didn't have time to carefully review. If I manage to get involved again as a real maintainer, I will enforce syntactic stability and backward compatibility as much as possible.

How about putting together an upgrade tool in the same spirit of python's 2to3 [1]? If not actually a corrective tool it could discover and report likely outmoded constructs. Or even form the basis of a proper org-lint?

In anycase, it must be said that many of us simply could not stay organized without efforts like yours, and we're greatly appreciative! (couldn't write a grant without it anymore)

[1] https://docs.python.org/2/library/2to3.html

apologies (read the update before blathering):

   New Org linter library
     org-lint can check syntax and report common issues in Org documents.

Breaking backwards compatibility happens, and I don't see it as too much of a threat to the project.

What might be nice is, for every release, to provide a script that would update your org files to the current standard.

Maybe such files even exist, but they would need to be closer to the users' hands.

Thanks for your contribution. The thing is that if it isn't easy for code contributors to maintain backwards compatibility, they won't.