Re: Small documentation bug (versioning)

[Bob Friesenhahn]

On Mon, 30 Jan 2006, Ralf Wildenhues wrote:
> * Magne Oestlyngen wrote on Tue, Jan 24, 2006 at 06:50:04PM CET:
> > I just looked at the libtool docs to understand -version-info, and
> > believe there is a bug in the documentation (6.3 Updating library
> > version information):
> >
> > Point 5 says: "If any interfaces have been removed since[...]" age=0
> >
> > Shouldn't that be "[...] removed OR CHANGED [...]"? (Since API changes
> > also makes the new version incompatible with the old).
>
> Hmm, I'm inclined to agree with you.  But from skimming the text around,
> I think it does not even get clear whether `changing' an interface means
> a compatible or an incompatible change.  Or whether what I would call an
> incompatible change is called an `interface removal' in the manual
> lingo.
>
> I must admit that I've tried to avoid this part of the documentation so
> far, mostly.

I recommend leaving this part of the documentation the way it is.  It 
has worked fine for me and I always evaluate the steps in the order 
specified.

To me, changing an interface means anything which changes the 
operation of the interface, including adding additional parameters 
which would not be noticed by software currently using those 
interfaces.  But an interface change does not necessarily make a 
library incompatible with the older library.  For example, if an extra 
optional parameter is added, existing software may continue to operate 
using existing parameters.

Bob
======================================
Bob Friesenhahn
address@hidden, http://www.simplesystems.org/users/bfriesen/
GraphicsMagick Maintainer,    http://www.GraphicsMagick.org/