Ring would be cool if not for https://github.com/briansmith/ring#versioning--stability
This is especially true given it’s a security library, which perhaps more than any other category I would want to be stable, compatible, and free of surprises.
“You must upgrade to the latest release the moment we release it or else you risk security vulnerabilities and won’t be able to link against any library that uses a different version of ring. Also, we don’t ‘do’ stable APIs and remove APIs the instant we create a new one, so any given release may break your codebase. Good luck have fun!”
Similarly, while the policy is still that ring only supports the newest rust compiler version, due to the fact that there has been no update for months already, you can use it with older compiler versions.
Last, the author used to yank old versions of its library, which caused tons of downstream pains (basically, if you are a library and are using ring, I recommend you have a Cargo.lock checked into git). This yanking has stopped since 3 years already, too. Don't think this was mentioned in the readme, but I feel it's an important improvements for users.
So a great deal of things has improved, although I'd say only the first bullet point is a permanent improvement, while the second two might be regressed upon. idk.