Re: soname number in name of dev-package?

[Henning Makholm <henning@makholm.net>]

Scripsit Stephen Frost
> * Henning Makholm (henning@makholm.net) wrote:

> > In summary: Yes, one could probably work around the lack of versions
> > in the -dev packages name, but the result would be (in my view)
> > significantly less elegant than having it there.

> Trying to support unsupported versions of libraries is decidely worse.

Is anybody advocating that we should try to "support unsupported
versions of libraries"? I'm certainly not.

> If the API changes in an incompatible way then *fix* the things which
> use the library to use the new API.  Users aren't affected- the old,
> already compiled package, works fine against the lib it depends on, the
> new package will fail when trying to build against the new API

Exactly. Ensuring that the new API is not available under the old one's
name will make sure that the new package does fail (because of a
missing build-dependency) rather than trying silently to build against
the new API as if it was the old, and possibly producing bad binaries.

-- 
Henning Makholm                    "There is a danger that curious users may
                          occasionally unplug their fiber connector and look
                      directly into it to watch the bits go by at 100 Mbps."