Re: [Caml-list] binary compatibility of 3.08.3

[Jacques Garrigue <garrigue@math.nagoya-u.ac.jp>]

From: Stefano Zacchiroli <zack@debian.org>

> On Thu, Jan 13, 2005 at 05:53:07PM +0100, Damien Doligez wrote:
> > Or you can wait a few weeks for 3.08.3.
> 
> BTW, do 3.08.3 break binary compatibility with 3.08.2?
> (as happened when upgrading from 3.08.1 to 3.08.2)

Any bug fix in the compiler has a very high probability of breaking
binary compatibility. This is due to the fact interface digests depend
on the indices of internal identifiers, so that purely internal
changes may break compatibility, eventhough the cmi format is left
unchanged.
It is reasonnable to assume that 3.08.3 will not be binary compatible.

By the way, due to a bug fix in the variance inference, it will also
not be 100% source compatible, but I hope this has no impact on
existing programs (as only few programs use variance). (I sincerely
hope there were no unsound programs around...)

Jacques Garrigue