Breaking Changes

Breaking Changes

From Break by Fallthrough Media

January 31, 2026 · 23 min · Episode 26

About this episode

The episode discusses semantic versioning, breaking changes, and the history of package management with insights from Kris and Steve.

Welcome back to Break, a Fallthrough aftershow! It's just Kris and Steve for this one! After brief reflections on the Gastown discussion, the episode pivots into a deep dive on semantic versioning, breaking changes, and the history of package management. Kris shares research showing most Go modules change far less code between major versions than people assume. They trace the history from CPAN and dpkg through NPM/Yarn to Go's GOPATH era, discuss supply chain security implications of MVS, and Kris teases an alternative Go toolchain project for 2026. Enjoying the aftershow? Let us know on social media! If you prefer to watch instead of just listen, head over to YouTube where you can watch this episode of Break! Thanks for tuning in and happy listening! Chapters: Prologue (00:00:00) Chapter 1: Reflecting on the Main Episode (00:00:17) Chapter 2: Data Centers, Technology & the Butlerian Jihad (00:01:22) Chapter 3: Semantic Versioning & Breaking Changes in Go (00:02:42) Chapter 4: Breaking Changes Across Language Ecosystems (00:05:04) Chapter 5: History of Package Managers (00:08:48) Chapter 6: OS vs Language Package Managers (00:11:30) Chapter 7: NPM, Yarn & Lock Files…

People in this episode

Host: Kris Brandow

Guest: Steve Klabnik

Topics covered

  • semantic versioning
  • breaking changes
  • package management
  • supply chain security
  • Go toolchain

Keywords

  • semantic versioning
  • breaking changes
  • Go modules
  • package management
  • supply chain security

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Fallthrough Media, Go, CPAN, dpkg, NPM, Yarn, GOPATH

More episodes of Break

Explore listener stats, chart rankings, contacts and more on the Break podcast page.