Re: Guile release planning

[Andy Wingo]

Hi Linas,

On Tue 11 Nov 2008 04:44, "Linas Vepstas" <address@hidden> writes:

> 2008/11/10 Neil Jerram <address@hidden>:
>>
>> I also think it will help us manage API incompatibilities better.  I
>> think our default position from now on should be to maintain
>> source-level (API) compatibility, but it is inevitable that there will
>> be exceptions to this.
>
> Any ideas for binary compatibility for the "micro" revisions?

I think it needs to be guaranteed.

> I recently discovered that a library compiled against 1.8.3
> would core dump when used with an application compiled
> against 1.8.5.

Ooh, bummer. The 1.8 series is binary-compatible (i.e. 1.8.x is
compatible with 1.8.y if x >= y), *but* only if compiled in the same
way.

An example of compiling in different ways is if you build against a
guile with --disable-threads, but then rebuild guile with
--enable-threads, or vice versa. Probably what happened to you?

> The linux kernel got rid of the stable/unstable branch idea,
> and it's worked really really well. (the reasons why are
> widely documented) I'm for it.

The linux kernel doesn't guarantee ABI /or/ API stability -- it's a
different kettle of fish.

Cheers,

Andy
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