ABI vs. API (2004)

27 points by dhruvp

david_chisnall

Was there some reason this was posted now?

gjvc

someone thought it interesting? not every post requires an exogenous motivation!
- Al3xFor
  
  It was actually interesting to me
- lynndotpy
  
  This is interesting to me as well, understanding what an API is very well but barely having had the need to understand what an ABI is, or the problems with an unstable or incompatible ABIs. It's been one of those background questions I had simply left wanting for the time an explanation shows itself to me, like this post here :)
- david_chisnall
  
  It’s not a very detailed explanation of the two ideas, so I assumed this particular explanation was chosen for some reason.
  - quad
    
    What’s a better one?
    
    david_chisnall
    
    I’m not sure, but I’d expect some examples, some of the corner cases, and so on. The one-liner of ‘ABI changes mean you must recompile a dependency for it to keep working, API changes mean you must modify the source for it to keep working’ gives you about as much information as this.