module dependencies issues

[Marko Rauhamaa]

Chris Angelico <rosuav at gmail.com>:
> On Fri, Jul 10, 2015 at 7:11 AM, Marko Rauhamaa <marko at pacujo.net> wrote:
>> Whoever creates B-1.1 ought to make it backward-compatible, but he
>> should also say so. The majority of developers are careless about
>> backward-compatibility; having the component system make wishful
>> assumptions will lead to catastrophic consequences.
>
> I strongly disagree. All your idea would do is create a massive
> compatibility matrix, which would itself become utterly
> unmaintainable.

Well, it's working and very much maintainable.

> It's all very well to ask for a declaration that 1.1 is compatible
> with 1.0, but what happens when you add in 1.2 and 1.3, and then add
> some point releases on all of them?

The compatibility statement accepts ranges and can be open-ended.

> And just how compatible does it have to be to get a tick?

It must be a safe binary replacement of the earlier version. Bug fixes
and new features are ok, but none of the old functionality can be
obsoleted.


Marko