Re: [boost] Should we still be testing GCC 2.95.3?

From: Jim Douglas (jim_at_[hidden])
Date: 2006-01-25 05:53:26

A cautionary tale from QNXland...

The QNX OS was launched back in the mists of time with the release of 
QNX2, and then at some point it was upgraded to QNX4. Back in the year 
2000 QNX Neutrino (aka QNX6) was launched. In amongst all the hype and 
razamataz was a statement that support for QNX4 would cease after 5 years.

So here we are almost six years later. Far from withdrawing support, QSS 
has just announced yet another round of updates to enable QNX4 users to 
keep pace with hardware advances. Obviously the size of the existing 
QNX4 user base shows no sign of diminishing (along with their wallets).

For your average jobbing programmer it doesn't matter what version of 
compiler is on the latest distro, it's what s/he *has* to work with on a 
daily basis while developing and/or maintaining a project that was 
started all those years ago.

If we withdraw support for gcc 2.95.3 in Boost v1.34 in order to remove 
some of the obstacles that are impeding the desired development of Boost 
(IMHO no bad thing), then we must continue to offer 1.33.1 as an 
alternative and viable "product" for some time to come.

Jim