Versioning [was: Re: Symlinks from Tools to Applications]

[David Ayers]

Hello,

I am still missing a clear concept of how versioning (on any platform)
should really work in practice.  I am concerned because we may be
burdening the trunk with experimental approaches that affect the new ABI
defined by -make v2 which may lead to further ABI instability in the future.

Let me try to formulate my concern more precisely.  I'm trying to
imagine a system with multiple versions of -base and -gui.
- Would this system have two versions of gpbs/gdnc running simultaneously?
- If I started Gorm with linked against the older version of -base,
could it communicate with DBModeler linked against the newer version via
Drag & Drop?
- Could Ink.app and TextEdit.app copy & paste?
- How are will services running with different versions communicate with
applications running with different versions?

>From my understanding any system with mixed versions will mostly work by
chance rather than by design.  Now keyed-archiving (if thoroughly
implemented in all running versions) may alleviate this concern to some
degree.

But I still have the feeling that effort attempting to support versioned
libraries in an environment based on integration and delegation in such
a degree as GNUstep does, may be disproportionate compared to the added
value.  Don't take me wrong, if there is a concept on how these
scenarios can work, and they don't result ABI instability for the
standard linear migration paths, I'm all for it.  I guess I'm just
missing the clear picture on where these changes are headed.

Cheers,
David