Boost logo

Boost :

Subject: Re: [boost] Removing old config macro and increasing compilerrequirements.
From: Stephen Kelly (steveire_at_[hidden])
Date: 2013-08-05 08:12:50


On 08/05/2013 01:46 PM, Daniel James wrote:
> On Mon, 5 Aug 2013, at 01:29 PM, Sergey Cheban wrote:
>> On 05.08.2013 14:33, Daniel James wrote:
>>
>>
>>>> So I'm inclined to agree to whatever you want ;-) But perhaps more to
>>>> the
>>>> point we should be doing whatever our users want - so perhaps it would be
>>>> better to open up a discussion on boost-users on which compilers we can
>>>> drop
>>>> and work from there.
>>> I'll do that this evening.
>> I don't think that many of the boost users really read the boost-users
>> newsgroup. It would be nice to create a poll at the boost.org site.
> I'll put a request up on the site, but I don't think a poll is
> appropriate. Will probably just ask for emails from anyone using older
> compilers. I'm not sure if people check the site either, but I think a
> few people are subscribed to the news rss feed and a news item can be
> linked to.
>
> If anyone is feeling keen they could set something up. It might be a
> good idea at some point to do a survey of boost users.

What happened to 'users of ancient compilers can use ancient boost' ?

Given that boost is quite explicit that it doesn't guarantee source or
binary compatibility,

 http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.lib.boost.devel/237484/focus=237500

 http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.lib.boost.devel/237484/focus=237518

I don't see why bumping a compiler requirement from one set of antiques
to another slightly more recent set of antiques is an issue that needs
to be suspended for a long time with so much red tape as user surveys.

Users of ancient compilers can use ancient boost. Given that you have no
complaints from anyone using an antique with the recent boost releases,
and given that many people in this thread have repeated that many
libraries do not work with the antiques and they are not tested anyway,
you have a good case to assume that the impact of bumping the
requirement is very low.

You don't need user surveys. Please just commit the patches today and
move on :). Let progress happen and get out of the way :).

Thanks,

Steve.


Boost list run by bdawes at acm.org, gregod at cs.rpi.edu, cpdaniel at pacbell.net, john at johnmaddock.co.uk