Re: [boost] Proposal for radically altered approach to releases

From: Pedro Lamarão (pedro.lamarao_at_[hidden])
Date: 2006-05-11 15:09:52

Thorsten Ottosen escreveu:

> As a concrete example, what happens when I commit the new version of the 
> range library. Can I simply mark some of the compilers as not supported 
> to get it into the stable-branch, or do I have to wait forever to get it 
> from trunk to stable?

Your question is answered in the document:

"If and only if trunk changes for a library show no unexpected failures
on any required compiler/platform, the developer may merge those changes
into stable. If the merge causes any unexpected failures whatsoever, the
changes must be reverted immediately."

Later:

"An unexpected failure is any test that fails and is not marked up in
status/explicit-failures-markup.xml as an expected failure."

If a library don't support a compiler, then all tests can be "expected
failures", and the criteria for a marge is met.

> Also, what happens if several libraries depend on your library in trunk, 
> but can't work with the dependency found in stable? But the version in 
> trunk is not ready to go to stable and so this will stall all libraries 
> that depend on that library?

This answer is also in the document, implied in the following paragraph:

"Problems with one library do not delay release of other libraries.
Although release of an update for a particular library may be delayed by
a dependency on another library, an upgrade for given library is never
delayed by a wait for a non-dependency library."

Yes, dependant libraries wait for dependencies to go in. This point
should be made more explicit, maybe in a separate "disadvantages" section.

This is a very _sound_ proposal.

-- 
Pedro Lamarão
Desenvolvimento
Intersix Technologies S.A.
SP: (55 11 3803-9300)
RJ: (55 21 3852-3240)
www.intersix.com.br
Your Security is our Business