Program revision compatibility in an object-oriented environment is provided operating between a first and a second program. The first program has a parent object with an initial group of fields and an inherited child object with an initial group of fields. In one embodiment, an expansion descriptor is established in the first program which provides a data storage location for data of a new field. The data of the new field is sent to the data storage location of the expansion descriptor and a child object identifier is associated with the data of the new field in the expansion descriptor. The expansion descriptor is sent to the second program along with object information of the child object corresponding to the initial group of fields. The second program recognizes the expansion descriptor and may update a corresponding child object of the second program regardless of whether the second program has been updated with the new field.