Re: [boost] [Boost-users] Maintenace Guidelines wiki page

Subject: Re: [boost] [Boost-users] Maintenace Guidelines wiki page
From: Robert Ramey (ramey_at_[hidden])
Date: 2008-11-23 14:53:04

> But I don't know. Here's another idea. Rather than trying to make the
> analogy between boost and a single open source project, perhaps the
> analogy should be between boost and a single distributer of multiple
> open source projects, for example, Debain or Fedora. Debian, for
> example, has three tiers of "release": testing, stable, and unstable -
> everyone's favorite. ;) I'm not sure what quality control procedures
> they have, but maybe that's also a good place to look for ideas.

I think a better view of what boost should be or actually is is
a collection of compatible libraries.  One "model" which I
presumed inspired boost is STL (std:: namespace) which
included a large collection of parts which would work
together.  I think that one view of boost is STL++.

Totally understandable - but I don't think its the best
way of looking at it.

I think that boost is "looser - more decoupled"
group of facilities than STL is. I would think that in
the future boost would move toward something that
looked like the following:

a) directory structuring & namespaces

.../boost
    /serialization
        /include
            ... files
        /lib
            src
            build
            .. etc

b) versioning
    each library having its own version number

c) requirements
    each library lists the other libraries it depends upon and the minimum 
version # - as it does with compilers now

d) release
    "library release" would be considered effective when any changes in the 
trunk are merged into
the release branch and nothing breaks.
    "boost release" would contain the lastest release version of all 
libraries

e) testing
    testing of each library would be done against the current latest release 
versions.  Optionally, a user could run tests for any specific library 
against his "manifest" of the the library versions he uses.  He might want 
to do this if he didn't upgrade all the libraries he uses but only a few.

Robert Ramey