Re: [boost] What Should we do About Boost.Test?

Subject: Re: [boost] What Should we do About Boost.Test?
From: Dave Abrahams (dave_at_[hidden])
Date: 2012-10-04 13:29:55

on Tue Sep 18 2012, Jamie Allsop <ja11sop-AT-yahoo.co.uk> wrote:

> On 17/09/12 15:40, Dave Abrahams wrote:
>>
>> Hi All,
>>
>> I was just going through Boost.Test to try to figure out how to teach
>> it, and while it looks to have substantial value, it is also in quite a
>
>> mess.  It contains loads of features that are exercised in the examples/
>> directory but neither included in any of the tests nor documented.
>> There are facilities for command-line argument parsing!  There are
>> "decorators" that turn on/off features for test cases.  There is support
>> for mock objects! These are cool and sometimes necessary features, but
>> who knew?  The third tutorial page
>> (http://www.boost.org/doc/libs/1_51_0/libs/test/doc/html/tutorials/new-year-resolution.html)
>> has a glaring typo in the code examples: "BOOST_AUTO_EST_CASE".  There's
>> no reference manual at all.  There are nearly-identical files in the
>> examples/ directory called "est_example1.cpp" and "test_example1.cpp"
>> (Did the "t" key on someone's keyboard break?)  I could go on, but where
>> would I stop?
>
> Yes I agree there are some documentation issues but addressing these
> is I am sure a much lesser effort than the following suggestions made.

Really?  Which ones in particular do you think would be harder than
fixing Boost.Test's documentation, which has been in essentially this
state for years without substantial improvement?

>> As a straw man, I'll make this suggestion:
>>
>> - Boost.Test is officially deprecated in the next release
>
> I cannot agree this is the correct approach - I'd rather we all put
> effort into tidying up the docs and helping Gennadiy out. I'm sure
> he'd be receptive to anything that helps make this important library
> better.

If "we all" doesn't have to include me, I'm all for it.  I personally
have too many other projects to work on.  Rescue is the preferred option
if it's possible.

-- 
Dave Abrahams
BoostPro Computing                  Software Development        Training
http://www.boostpro.com             Clang/LLVM/EDG Compilers  C++  Boost