Re: [boost] 1.31.0 regressions

From: Beman Dawes (bdawes_at_[hidden])
Date: 2004-02-11 08:59:32

At 12:20 PM 2/10/2004, David Abrahams wrote:
 >
 >IIUC, we've already found some regressions with 1.31.0, having to do
 >with the graph library and MSVC6.  These regressions affect the Python
 >lib also, and the problems show up in the regression test results.
 >It's very disappointing to me that even though the Python library was
 >being tested continuously, we let the release go out anyway.

Yes, that worried me too. Wasn't Python a problem with the last major 
release too? Perhaps Python regressions should be looked at more often.

 >We ought to ask ourselves how this happened and see if there's
 >something we can do to prevent it in the future.

It comes down to release discipline. If fixes aren't forthcoming for 
libraries that many other Boost libraries depend on, it delays testing on 
the other libraries. It was also pretty amazing how many commits were made 
not just after branch-for-release, but after release candidate testing 
started. It seems hard to motivate some developers until late in the 
process.

 >  My guess is that
 >inspecting regression results by hand isn't good enough, and we need
 >an automated system like the BuildBot.

It's not like we didn't know about various regressions. And people doing 
the regression tests often posted messages indicating concern over 
failures.

However, if we can turn around critical tests much more often, that would 
certainly help.

 >We also ought to be thinking about releasing 1.31.1 ASAP.

Go for it! It would be nice to resolve the issue of path lengths over 100 
characters in tar files, too.

--Beman