Re: [boost] [1.37.0] branches/release open for merges

From: Robert Ramey (ramey_at_[hidden])
Date: 2008-08-21 13:00:56

Vladimir Prus wrote:

> On all platforms, including those that are not release platforms? Say
> somebody commits a revision 1234567 to trunk; if there an easy way to
> tell if it's OK to merge trunk state, as of revision 1234567 to the 
> release
> branch? Preferrably, without manually comparing the list of release
> compilers with the list of compilers used for trunk testing and
> comparing revision numbers for each?

So the question is "When is it OK to merge from the trunk into release?"

I see a couple of different possible answers:

a) When the library is as good as the author can make it

b) When the library is better in at least one way than the current release
and in no way worse.  That is when releasing the changes will
result in an improvement for someone and cause no harm to anyone.

c) When tests pass on "release compilers"

For a new library I would prefer a).  For an improvement/bug fix to
and existing library, I would prefer b).  Personally, I would never
prefer c) since it opens up a whole issue of what it means to
be "release platform" which I don't think is a very useful concept
in this context.

Robert Ramey