[boost] [1.45][website] binary serialization fubar, website needs updating (was: Beta next week?)

Subject: [boost] [1.45][website] binary serialization fubar, website needs updating (was: Beta next week?)
From: Eric Niebler (eric_at_[hidden])
Date: 2010-10-15 03:58:17

On 10/14/2010 11:55 PM, Robert Ramey wrote:
> Sergey Voropaev wrote:
>> Beman Dawes <bdawes <at> acm.org> writes:
>>
>> I think boost::serialization library has very serious flaw. It is
>> lack of backward compatibility for binary archive. I discovered this
>> problem when I did upgrade from 1.34 to 1.43 and 1.44 versions of
>> BOOST. 1.44 library can not work with old binary archive. The reason
>> - format of binary header of archive has been changed.
>> I think 1.45 version should be corrected for this problem and/or we
>> should place some announcement about recommendation not to use the
>> 1.44 version to work with binary archive.
>>
>> See:
>> https://svn.boost.org/trac/boost/ticket/4660
>> http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.lib.boost.devel/208588
> 
> I"m aware of this, it's just that I haven't the the time to deal with
> it right now.  I've had a lot of trouble with this and I'm warying
> of trying to fix it without having the time to do it right.

I just read through the bug report. Oh god. <sigh>

I'm open to hearing suggestions. Robert, it sounds like you're not going
to be able to fix this any time soon, is that right? Then it sounds to
me like binary serialization is just broken, full stop. If we decide to
push ahead with 1.45, my opinion is that we put a #error in the binary
serialization headers so that anybody who tries to use it gets a hard
error. If you care about binary serialization, the answer is just to not
use 1.45.

And not use 1.44 either, but that ship has sailed ... without even so
much as a release note. I have to say, as a release manager, I'm
seriously pissed off. Can anybody comment on why there isn't any note AT
ALL about serialization on
http://www.boost.org/users/news/version_1_44_0? And nary a word about
binary serialization incompatibilities at
http://www.boost.org/doc/libs/1_44_0/libs/serialization/doc/release.html? Robert?
Can we at least update the website now?

-- 
Eric Niebler
BoostPro Computing
http://www.boostpro.com