Re: [boost] [new Warnings policy] MSC4180 ontheMaintenance Guidelines

Subject: Re: [boost] [new Warnings policy] MSC4180 ontheMaintenance Guidelines
From: Stewart, Robert (Robert.Stewart_at_[hidden])
Date: 2009-11-23 12:14:38

Peter Dimov wrote:
> Stewart, Robert wrote:
>
> > If one is in the habit of ignoring warnings (suppressed or
> > otherwise), one
> > may miss the error.  Warnings can alert the developer to a
> > problem before
> > anyone notices it in real use.  Consequently, the warnings
> > policy is to
> > build at a reasonably high warning level and to emit none.
>
> This is a reasonable warnings policy for a company, or a
> project, but is not a Boost warnings policy.

I don't understand why you'd make that distinction.  Why would a reasonably high warning level not be good Boost policy?  Why would emitting no warnings not be good Boost policy?

> The Boost warnings policy needs to
>
> - state whether a warning is considered a bug,

I perceive you could mean either of two things by that statement: determine whether to consider all warnings from Boost code seen by users as bugs or list each potential compiler warning and indicate whether it should be considered legitimate or not.  I presume you mean the former, as the latter isn't generally possible, though one could, of course, discuss the various circumstances that would trigger particular warnings that should be treated as a bug.

> - state whether and how a developer should deal with reports
>   (and trac tickets) that a warning is emitted,

Reasonable.

> - ensure that warnings are seen by developers,

I take that to mean a reporting mechanism to ensure that the author/maintainer of a library is alerted to warnings occurring on the trunk.

> - ensure that a warning, once eliminated, stays eliminated,

I suppose that you mean to imply the reporting mechanism above and a policy to disallow code so reported in a release.  If so, I agree.

> - ensure that warnings are not introduced into other
>   developers's code.

I'm not sure quite what you mean or how you would impose this.

_____
Rob Stewart                           robert.stewart_at_[hidden]
Software Engineer, Core Software      using std::disclaimer;
Susquehanna International Group, LLP  http://www.sig.com

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