Update GDExtension docs with 4.1 branch info

[paddy-exe]

Fixes #7648

[skyace65]

Thanks!

[dcuny]

I don't understand how this bug process works. It's been over a week, the original bug has been closed, this ticket merged, and the page still is incorrect.

Additionally, this bullet point is also incorrect:

a Godot 4 executable,

With the changes to GDExtension, this needs to be the Godot 4.1. Godot 4.0 is not binary compatible with GDExtensions compiled under 4.0.

One of the problems with writing:

Godot 4.1 is being used here as an example.

is that it glosses over the other difference between Godot 4.0 and 4.1 (which is mentioned in #7648) - the change to the code in the class initializer example_library_init.

It would be better to state at the top of the article something along the lines of:

• GDExtension in Godot 4.1 breaks binary compatibility with Godot 4.0;
• The instructions here only apply to Godot 4.1; and
• Instructions for building GDExtension in Godot 4.0 can be found [[INSERT LINK HERE]]

The text can then proceed with the assumption that the user is using Godot 4.1 (or later).

[dsnopek]

I don't understand how this bug process works. It's been over a week, the original bug has been closed, this ticket merged, and the page still is incorrect.

I'm not on the docs team, but my understanding is that PRs get merged into the "latest" docs first, which you can see here:

https://docs.godotengine.org/en/latest/tutorials/scripting/gdextension/gdextension_cpp_example.html

And then later (in batches) PRs that are labeled with "cherrypick:4.1" (like this one is!) will be cherrypicked into the 4.1 branch, which will be pushed into the "stable" docs at that point.

It would be better to state at the top of the article something along the lines of:

Thanks for the suggestions!

I suspect the docs are written the way they are to try and be sort of "future proof", so that they hopefully won't need to be updated when 4.2 comes out (assuming we succeed in maintaining compatibility for 4.2 and beyond).

Do you have any experience using Git and GitHub? If so, feel free to make a PR with your suggested changes!

Otherwise, when I find some time, I'll make a PR that attempts to bridge the gap between 4.0 -> 4.1 update information, and "future proof" docs for 4.1+

[dsnopek]

@dcuny I just posted PR #7699 in attempt to address your concerns! Please let me know what think.

I didn't follow your suggestions exactly, as I wanted to still attempt to make the page as "future proof" as possible, and not clutter it up with all the specifics related to the GDExtension breakage between Godot 4.0 and 4.1.

[dcuny]

The most important thing is that the instructions provided work with the version that it says it work with. 😄

I'm not sure how future-proof you can make it. You can be optimistic and hope that GDExtention remains stable, but honestly, I'd expect it to continue to be problematic in the foreseeable future.

Thanks!