ABI compatibility is not a MAJOR problem

Too often, C++ developers tend to ignore ABI compatibility problems and think that incompatibilities are limited to changes in the interface of the library motivated by new features or bugs. However, the ABI can also be affected by the context of the compilation (architecture, compiler, C++ runtime, ...) and even by the libraries that we are consuming. Using semantic versioning is not enough.

In this presentation, Javier intends to make clear the difference between API and ABI, source and binary compatibility. He'll point out the extreme relevance that ABI compatibility has for library developers and give examples of things that affect the ABI and some techniques to minimize that pain. Taking care of ABI stability can become very important when libraries can't be built always from sources due to very long compilation times, licensing issues or closed source components.

In the last part of the talk Javier will introduce Conan as the right tool to address this problem. He'll show how many different binaries can be generated by one simple library taking into account some settings (OS, compiler) and options (shared, static), and how the problem becomes more and more complex when the graph of dependencies of your project grows. Conan has some useful tools to help you know and handle the ABI compatibility problem.