Re: Have we become too Intel x64 centered?

From: Edward Diener (eldiener_at_[hidden])
Date: 2021-01-25 20:44:17

On 1/23/2021 6:20 AM, John Maddock via Boost wrote:
> I have no solution for this, but I note that neither do we have CI, nor 
> tests on 
> https://www.boost.org/development/tests/develop/developer/summary.html 
> that aren't Intel x86.  The compiler list has shrunk to msvc/clang/gcc 
> as well.
> 
> I note that at least in theory, other platforms/architectures could be 
> integrated into Drone CI (either the CppAlliance one, or our own), but 
> someone would have to offer to host the clients running the tests.
> 
> Any thoughts/solutions?

My main thought is that, while you are correct about not testing on 
something other than Intel x64, from the programmers viewpoint he is 
writing code in C++ and not for a particular platform/architecture. At 
the most he may be writing code with attention to a compiler or OS, but 
hardly ever does a particular CPU itself come into play unless lower 
level assembly code, tailored to a CPU, comes into play. So 
realistically the programmer does not care about a CPU at all. Even if a 
test were to fail on some other platform/architecture, where it normally 
passes on Intel x64, what would a programmer do about it ? Probably very 
little. Maybe, at the very most, report a problem to the compiler 
running on that platform/architecture that their is something wrong 
somewhere. But for the vast, vast majority of times such a problem would 
hardly indicate anything wrong with the code itself. I offer all this up 
as a possibly valid reason why testing a Boost library on some other 
platform/architecture, other than the usual Intel x64 on 
Mac/Linux/Windows, is not going to be a big priority for any Boost 
library developer/maintainer.