Re: ABI and API for g_object_ref_sink() (Re: GTK_FLOATING broken in 2.9?)

[Tim Janik <timj imendio com>]

On Thu, 15 Dec 2005, Dave Benson wrote:

> On Fri, Dec 16, 2005 at 12:29:18AM +0100, Tim Janik wrote:
> > i think this is a good enough compromise. we'll allow potential breakage
> > if applications/libraries don't care to implement their dependencies
> > properly. i hope that is weak enough to not occour or be easily fixable
> > in practice. to help with that, it should be outlined in the docs and
> > release notes of course.
> > basically, a rule of thumb for applications will be that if they depend on
> > glib-2.10 for some reason *and* also depend on gtk+, they should make sure
> > to at least depend on gtk+-2.8.10. this will be the case for the next
> > gnome release.
>
> and this hackery will need to be propagated to other
> libraries that currently implement their own floating flag, i suppose...

no, it wouldn't work, and why should it?
i said this'd be gtk specific hook,
and that's due to:
a) the large amount of glib and gtk+ dependent code out there
b) the API/ABI stability glib/gtk attempt to provide for this code base
c) the specific library requirements of the upcoming gnome release
   (gtk+-2.10 won't be ready, but they need pango optimizations which
   require glib-2.10)

i don't expect your "other libraries" to meet those three requirements.


> once again, is this really worth it?  i mean, we knew about the fundamental
> desire for a floating flag from gobject 2.0's birth, since it was based
> on gtkobject, and users have had 4 major releases to design code around it.
> there's no essentially new information to motivate this change,
> except maybe the existance of a spare bit in GObject.

ok so there is a reason. a desire (by multiple users and projects
actually) to implement that flag and a possibility (as was found out
in the original thread on this subject already).

> it seems like just waiting for 3.0 is a nicer, more stable approach.

i don't think you presented an argument for not doing it now (which would
mean causing more and more harm to third party projects by forcing them to
implement their own floating behaviour). if i honestly believed it'd help
people to wait with this, i'd do it though.

regarding 3.0 specifically, i don't have any information on whether or
when that could come at all. so referring to its availability doesn't
provide a solid argumentation or planning base for me, sorry.

> - dave

---
ciaoTJ