From: Alex Fenton <alex@...>
Date: 2008-08-06T20:53:25+09:00
Subject: Re: State of Ruby 1.8.6?

Hi Nobu

Nobuyoshi Nakada wrote:
>> needless changes to the underlying extension API. As a
>> result 1.8.7 (and possibly later versions of 1.8.6?) don't only break 
>> certain Rails versions but also any library that uses certain SWIG 
>> features to generate extension code.
> 
> What is "the underlying extension API"?  Has it been reported,
> or I'm missing it?

I was thinking of, for example, making "object allocation during garbage 
collection phase" throw an rb_bug. It was this change:
http://redmine.ruby-lang.org/repositories/revision/ruby-18?rev=15429

I understand the reason for the patch [ruby-bugs:11859] but it 
substantially altered extensions' expectations of how to interact with 
GC, and so broke a considerable number (eg libxml, wxruby, ruby-gnome2, 
cairo...)

Anyway, the problem is now SWIG's and individual authors.
http://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=2034216&group_id=1645&atid=101645

thanks
alex