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ABI changes do happen. gcc had an ABI change in std::string because of C++11. It was long and painful, but everyone survived, the world did not end

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> ABI changes do happen

Will never happen on Windows, especially not in user-mode libraries, and especially not something this pervasive.

Contrary to the FOSS compile from source culture, other platforms have a different point of view on ABI breaks.

Which is why Valve ended up using Proton.

I'm pretty sure GCC has been ABI stable far longer that MSVC which used to break ABI every release.

GCC was forced to break the std::string ABI by the C++11 standard and they have been lobbing ever since against ABI breaks.

GCC/libstdc++ just changed the ABI for std::variant: https://gcc.gnu.org/gcc-16/changes.html#libstdcxx

You haven't used Windows in a while I imagine.

MSVC has stabilised the ABI since VS 2015, we are on VS 2026 now.

Due to customer pressure to stop doing exactly that, to the point some ISO C and C++ stuff that requires breaking the ABI has not been implemented thus far.

I am quite certain that I will find ABI breaks in GCC release notes since Slackware 2.0, when I used it for the first time.

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