Re: [boost] Breaking existing libraries

Subject: Re: [boost] Breaking existing libraries
From: Johan Råde (rade_at_[hidden])
Date: 2008-11-23 07:59:57

Dave Handley wrote:

> David Abrahams wrote:
> 
>> Of course backward compatibility is desirable, but maintaining it 
>> rigidly prevents forward progress.  Judicious breakage does not 
>> necessarily mean that the library is "experimental" in any meaningful 
>> way.  Nobody really has a problem with the stability of shared_ptr,
> for 
>> example, and yet look at its list of breaking changes over the years: 
> 
> http://www.boost.org/doc/libs/1_37_0/libs/smart_ptr/compatibility.htm 
> 
> Breaking changes are certainly sometimes required, and this type of page
> in the boost docs is an ideal example of what *should* be done when
> breaking changes are needed.  

Breaking changes need to be more prominently advertised than that.
If there is a breaking change in the library boost.foo,
then the users should not have to look up the boost.foo docs
to find out that this has happened.
Someone who uses 20 different Boost libraries,
would then have to look up the docs for 20 different libraries
each time he upgrades to a new Boost version.

I suggest that the web pages http://www.boost.org/users/news/version_1_37_0 etc
should clearly advertise any breaking changes.
Maybe this page should have a section titled
"Breaking changes" or "Compatibility" or something like that.

During the beta testing people should be encouraged to report
any breaking changes that have not been advertised on this page.

--Johan Råde