Re: [boost] on boost version numbers

From: Oliver Kullmann (O.Kullmann_at_[hidden])
Date: 2005-12-06 13:52:37

On Tue, Dec 06, 2005 at 01:13:52PM -0500, Stefan Seefeld wrote:
> Thomas Witt wrote:
> > David Abrahams wrote:
> > 
> >>I'm all for dropping the leading 1.
> > 
> > 
> > Yes it is meaningless, but is it worth the effort? Personally I don't 
> > think so, we have bigger fish to fry.
> 
> I have to admit that I don't have any idea of the effort. I would guess
> it is a single configuration item in some Jamfile or somesuch.
>

but it's not just the effort at the Boost side --- it's a worldwide effort.
For example at my side: Since the library I'm developing uses Boost, I have
integrated building Boost into my build system, so that also inclusion
of header files and linking is done automatically, and this
for different versions of boost (compiled with different compiler versions).
I guess systems like that exist at several places.
Now my system obviously relies in some form on the naming conventions.
Sure, it shouldn't be too difficult to change this (but it's also not completely
trivial in case I want to support also older version of Boost), but there is always the
chance that you oversee something, especially regarding build systems and the
like where it is really hard to have a reliable automatic test system for this
purpose (so yet I don't have one). And then, once I release my library, the users
might found out about the bug.

Isn't there a saying in the direction of if something runs and there is no real
reason to change, then better continue as it is? (Can't remember it's exact wording.)
(And in this case there seems to be no reason at all to drop the leading 1.)

Furthermore the naming system like 1.33.2 seems to be universally used.
And why not having Boost 2.0 at some time? For example with C++ 0x.

Oliver