Re: [boost] [Release 1.34] Supported Compilers

From: Thomas Witt (witt_at_[hidden])
Date: 2006-01-31 00:45:42

Jeff,

Jeff Garland wrote:
> 
> I like your breakdown although we might need another category like
> 'experimental' to describe newer compilers that are partially supported or
> might be supported in the future -- although maybe it's the same as unsupported.

See below.

> 
> Anyway, here's how I'd categorize the current set of compilers on the
> regression page:
> 
> Supported;
> vc7.1 
> vc8.x 
> intel9_x 
> cw9_4 
> gcc3.x 
> gcc4.x 
> tru64cxx71-xx 

FWIW we just added QNX to this list.

> 
> Deprecated:
> intel8_x
> tru64cxx65-xx
> 
> Unsupported:
> borland 5_6_x
> cw8_x
> dmc 
> gcc2.95.x 
> sunpro 
> vc6 
> vc7 
> 
> I know -- that's a pretty aggressive cut in supported compilers, but I think
> it's time to let boost developers focus on new libraries instead of porting.

Hmm… our disagreement might be mostly about terminology. First of all I 
was never really happy with the category names but I failed to find 
better ones.

Thinking about it again. The reason might be that we have to deal with 
two different issues when we talk about compiler support. The easy part 
are outdated compilers. For those it's easy to say we don't care (that's 
  basically the meaning of unsupported and also in some way for 
deprecated). The hard part are compilers that just aren't compliant 
enough to support all of boost without heroic efforts by library 
writers. This category of compilers is the reason for the weasel wording 
   used to describe the fully supported category. The intend is to say 
we make a reasonable effort, document the limitations and provide 
regression tests until these compilers reach the unsupported stage due 
to obsoleteness.

As far as your list of unsupported compilers goes. I do feel 
uncomfortable with just dropping most of them without first deprecating 
them. This does not mean we should put effort into improving support for 
them 1.34 we just should not break them incidentally. As far as sunpro 
goes I'd like to see that one in fully/partially supported.

Thomas

-- 
Thomas Witt
witt_at_[hidden]