GObjectification - GSoC progress as of June 16, 2013

[Nader Morshed]

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On Tue, 18 Jun 2013 23:22:33 -0400
Ethan Blanton <elb at pidgin.im> wrote:

> This has several implications, but they all basically boil down to the
> fact that the *subclass* has to know the size of the parent class.
> Having to know the size means it can't be hidden.  Having to know the
> size and maintaining linkage compatability means it can't change size.
> So ... we're back where we started.
> 
> Any objects that should not be subclassed should have their
> implementations hidden to the extent possible, of course.

FWIW, there's G_SEAL to force callers to use the methods to access
object properties: https://live.gnome.org/GnomeGoals/UseGseal

Then you can either dummy pointers as padding for forward
compatibility, but another possible option is to add a field that
versions the structures and add conditional code to the getters /
setters. The trade-off better future-proofing for bulkier code. The
FreeBSD project discusses it in their standards for maintaining binary
compatibility: https://wiki.freebsd.org/BinaryCompatibility

I suspect the pidgin devs will probably speak against the latter point,
but just thought I'd throw it in as my 2 cents...

- --
Nader Morshed <morshed.nader at gmail.com>
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