Re: [boost] Are warnings acceptable artifacts from builds?

Subject: Re: [boost] Are warnings acceptable artifacts from builds?
From: Emil Dotchevski (emildotchevski_at_[hidden])
Date: 2009-09-11 14:57:47

On Fri, Sep 11, 2009 at 11:31 AM, Stewart, Robert
<Robert.Stewart_at_[hidden]> wrote:
> Emil Dotchevski wrote:
>>
>> If the "we want no warnings dammit" crowd main argument is "at my
>> company we have zero-warnings policy, we can't do anything about it"
>> then arguing whether or not any particular warning should be addressed
>> is pointless (OTOH, I'd bet that no company has zero-warnings policy
>> because some warnings can't be dealt with any other way but by
>> disabling them.)
>
> Disabling a warning, provided the scope is controlled, is fine.

Yes, but with GCC you can't control the scope.

> A company may craft a warnings policy, used whenever building code,
> that always disables select warnings, too, but that doesn't violate the
> zero warnings policy.

My point exactly. This confirms that it is preferable, for that
company, to disable some warnings instead of "fixing" them.

This in turn leads to another interesting question: why don't they fix
such warnings anyway? After all, that's what they're asking library
developers to do for them, right? At least in some cases, I'm sure,
the answer is "because that would do more harm than good" (as far as
this particular company is concerned.)

Therefore, if a library developer "fixes" a warning, some companies
would consider that helpful, and some would consider it harmful
(except, of course, companies that put their money where their mouth
is, and never, ever disable any warnings.)

Emil Dotchevski
Reverge Studios, Inc.
http://www.revergestudios.com/reblog/index.php?n=ReCode