On Mon, Feb 8, 2010 at 6:01 PM, David Cournapeau <da...@silveregg.co.jp>wrote:
> Darren Dale wrote: > > On Mon, Feb 8, 2010 at 7:25 PM, Robert Kern <robert.k...@gmail.com> > wrote: > >> Here's the problem that I don't think many people appreciate: logical > >> arguments suck just as much as personal experience in answering these > >> questions. You can make perfectly structured arguments until you are > >> blue in the face, but without real data to premise them on, they are > >> no better than the gut feelings. They can often be significantly worse > >> if the strength of the logic gets confused with the strength of the > >> premise. > > > > If I recall correctly, the convention of not breaking ABI > > compatibility in minor releases was established in response to the > > last ABI compatibility break. Am I wrong? > > That's what I thought as well, but I checked this morning, and the > actual number used for versioning has not changed since 1.0 (it is > 0x01000009). One issue was that we did not have a way to distinguish API > change from ABI changes until 1.2.0 IIRC, and that it was relatively > easy to break the ABI without changing any structure because of the way > the code generator was coded. > > IOW, I don't think that an unchanged number means that we have kept ABI > compatibility. I would like to think that having more regular binary > installers helped getting more concern about the issues, but that's > certainly falls into the gut's feeling department :) > > The policy was established after the last urge to change the ABI. What happened before that is ancient history, events that took place in an time of tribal migrations and upheaval. It was a time when programmers struggled hand to hand with vicious code and treated coding style with disdain. A heroic era. But we're more civilized now ;) Chuck
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