Re: [boost] Boost.Atomic, pushing forward and a little request for help

Subject: Re: [boost] Boost.Atomic, pushing forward and a little request for help
From: Edward Diener (eldiener_at_[hidden])
Date: 2011-08-01 17:48:12

On 8/1/2011 4:56 PM, Helge Bahmann wrote:
> Hi folks,
>
> from the comments to Boost.Lockfree I understand that you consider a
> non-reviewed Boost.Atomic as a "blocker"? I apologize that I have not pushed
> forward for review (considering that "it just works for me", and considering
> the length of the review queue...), but if you consider it blocking please
> just let me know what I would need to do to clear the path.
>
> What I will do shortly is to provide and uptodate package containing several
> fixes, several contributed by others (they are in the repo, but not in any
> release archive) as well as some missing bits to more closely match latest
> C++0X draft.
>
> The big sore point is still support for the various flavours of VC -- I know
> that there are (especially older) versions for which it is not working, but I
> am lacking test systems, so if you are affected please let me know and I will
> do my best to resolve the issues.

My own point of view when doing new development for VC++ and Boost is 
that it is simply not worth worrying about versions that are older than 
VC++ 8 ( VS2005 ). Others may disagree, but I have run into enough 
compiler bugs in the last three releases to not have to worry about any 
problems which might occur in releases before those. So my opinion is 
not to worry unduly about any releases prior to VC++ 8 for whatever you 
do in your development of a new library unless you are pretty sure that 
a fix for VC++ 7 or VC++ 7.1 is pretty trivial ( I don't even consider 
VC++ 6 worth discussing ).

This reply is also an encouragement for you to update Boost.Atomic, let 
others test it with compilers which you may not have, and get it working 
as best you can.