Re: [Boost-users] Users! Who'd like to wave goodbye to #ifdef BOOST_MSVC6_* workarounds?

Subject: Re: [Boost-users] Users! Who'd like to wave goodbye to #ifdef BOOST_MSVC6_* workarounds?
From: Robert Ramey (ramey_at_[hidden])
Date: 2010-10-03 17:52:05

Damien Hocking wrote:
> Hehehe.  If this was the Coliseum there'd be a lot of thumbs pointing
> downward right now...

Hmmm - I don't see any of the combatents with a thumb down.

Undertaking such an effort is a lot more work than first meets the
eye. It means going through the code line by line and likely breaking
a lot of arcane stuff.  This is due the fact that in many cases something
like

#if MSVC_VERSION < 7.0
...
#else
...
#endf

Really is a substitute for

#idef "COMPILER_MISFEATURE_X...
...

And a lot of compilers have implmented the misfeature so that
they're stuff is compatible with microsoft.  So one might well
break a bunch of stuff with out knowing it.  Also a lot of boost
code relies on ambiguously defined language features.  Sorting
out all this and making one's code work accross all the
combinations is and incredibly time consuming job.  Way beyond
what anyone who hasn't done it can imagine.  (Aside - the
single most important piece of code in boost is john maddocks
"config" without which none of this would be possible). We already
spend huge amounts of time dealing with things like visibility, dll
compatibility, differing standard library implementations, etc.

So, this would entail much more effort than meets the eye
and with no real benefit.

-1

Robert Ramey