Re: [Boost-build] Boost library naming scheme

From: Vladimir Prus (ghost_at_[hidden])
Date: 2008-04-21 08:12:38

On Monday 14 April 2008 09:52:31 Rene Rivera wrote:

> > This is a small issue and vendors like Debian can deal with frequent
> > SONAME changes.  I'd rather have that than deal with bugs caused by
> > accidental ABI changes.  C++ is notoriously hard to audit for ABI
> > changes.
> > 
> > The larger issues are that Boost embeds the boost version and compiler
> > name into the library name.  I'd really prefer to address these first.
> 
> Given all that, and these:
> 
> a) The Boost ABI is *never* guaranteed stable across *any* two versions. 

This is insane. If 1.35.0 and 1.35.1 are not fully compatible, there's no
sense whatsoever for point releases from the stable branch.

> And is almost always certain to be different based not just on version 
> but compiler and compilation options. (For the simple reason that much 
> code in Boost is conditionally selected based on all those factors)
> 
> b) That, as far as I understand, the lib*.so.X.Y.Z arrangement is to 
> allow for selection among possibly compatible ABIs.
> 
> c) That because of (a) we want to prevent the application of the 
> heuristics that support (b).

This is fairly backward. The soname trick works good enough for Linux, and
Boost is really not that unique. Boost is only unique is the self that we
have vocal Windows community that force ABI issues on the world ;-)

- Volodya