Re: [boost] Library Maintainence - was 5 Observations ....

Subject: Re: [boost] Library Maintainence - was 5 Observations ....
From: Steven Watanabe (watanabesj_at_[hidden])
Date: 2010-03-25 12:48:35

AMDG

Robert Ramey wrote:
> This would be a really bad idea in my opinion - for more than one reason.
>
> Very often, what users characterise as "bugs" are really one of the 
> following:
>
> * error in user's code
> * misunderstanding of error / warning messages
> * result of choices made by the developers in the course of making tradeoffs
>   between legimate optoins.
> * intentional features of the design which are not appreciated by the 
> "fixer"
>
> In summary, many of the proposed "bug fixes" are not bugs but something
> else and the proponent doesn't understand this.
>
> almost all changes have or can have unexpected side effects in places
> totally unexpected by the naive maintainer.
>   

As someone who does periodically apply fixes to
unmaintained libraries, I completely agree with
this statement.  Writing a good patch is generally
not a trivial task.  I think I'm pretty meticulous and
I still make mistakes sometimes.

In Christ,
Steven Watanabe