Re: [boost] Official warnings policy?

Subject: Re: [boost] Official warnings policy?
From: Emil Dotchevski (emildotchevski_at_[hidden])
Date: 2009-11-05 17:05:29

On Thu, Nov 5, 2009 at 10:26 AM, Stewart, Robert <Robert.Stewart_at_[hidden]> wrote:
> Emil Dotchevski wrote:
>> but I'll point out yet another reason why this warnings discussion is
>> silly:
>>
>> Q: How do we know that Boost Exception works when RTTI is disabled?
>>
>> A: I'm personally testing on whatever GCC I have installed and on MSVC
>> 8/9, and I don't see anyone complaining about other platforms.
>>
>> We don't test optimized builds, we don't test with exceptions or RTTI
>> disabled, but apparently that "class foo has virtual functions but
>> non-virtual destructor" is more important.
>
> There is clearly a problem with the warnings generated by Boost code.
> Addressing that problem makes Boost more usable and might even
> make it usable where it now is not.  That's hardly silly.

At least to me, it isn't at all clear that there is a problem with
warnings generated by Boost.

Sure, some companies opt not to use Boost, but this doesn't
necessarily indicate a problem in Boost. I've worked at several
companies where STL was banned yet they spent countless hours
implementing STL features and then countless hours implementing
optimizations in these features that were readily implemented in STL.
However, I don't blame their poor judgment on STL.

What about companies that *do* use Boost? If we are to prioritize our
efforts to provide the best service to them, should we be fixing
warnings or improving our testing procedures? Should we be fixing
warnings in general or working on tickets?

Emil Dotchevski
Reverge Studios, Inc.
http://www.revergestudios.com/reblog/index.php?n=ReCode