More importantly, it means that version upgrades are decoupled.
They don't have to download and install version 1 of an API for backwards compatibility if you're on version 2, and you don't have to download a new compiler version to upgrade a package as long as the package's maintainer is still willing to support the version you're on.
(That latter one being the same as with support for new revisions of C or C++ in in GCC.)
They don't have to download and install version 1 of an API for backwards compatibility if you're on version 2, and you don't have to download a new compiler version to upgrade a package as long as the package's maintainer is still willing to support the version you're on.
(That latter one being the same as with support for new revisions of C or C++ in in GCC.)