Post #1352117

2026-04-14 19:57 UTC

Hot take: more projects need a regression policy like the linux kernel. It doesn&#39;t matter if what a change is doing is &quot;technically&quot; correct, if it breaks a bunch of other stuff, it&#39;s that projects responsibility that it doesn&#39;t. No &quot;this was technically illegal&quot; or &quot;you just misused the API&quot;, &quot;you relied on UB behavior&quot; nonsense. If you want to push forward a breaking change, makes sure the users had reasonable amount of time to adjust before pushing breaking changes forward.

Replies (5)

@vathpela@infosec.exchange 2026-04-15 04:48

@karolherbst@chaos.social I'd go so much further with this, specifically with compilers. I want -flang=gnuc-2026010100. You change semantics, you keep both behaviors.

Open ##2279972
@oldsysops@social.dk-libre.fr 2026-04-15 08:03

@karolherbst@chaos.social like unit test ?

Open ##2279988
@etchedpixels@mastodon.social 2026-04-15 09:29

@karolherbst@chaos.social It needs to be rather more nuanced. We have so much code where 'someone made the same security cockup' because nobody will fix an API or piece of architecture. Not being willing to fix bad design at some point ends up as nothing more than dumping the cost of mistakes on others Most small things though absolutely. Pleading 'well it always technically undefined behaviour' rather than keeping a behaviour is usually bad

Open ##2279989
@pac85@social.treehouse.systems 2026-04-15 10:10

@karolherbst@chaos.social yeah Mesa is also p good at this. I feel like it's the king of thing that makes software something you can rely on.

Open ##2279994
@jcm@wafrn.jcm.re 2026-04-15 15:18

@karolherbst@chaos.social XKCD 1172 energy

Open ##2279997