Re: [boost] Patch bonanza for VS2013 Preview support

Subject: Re: [boost] Patch bonanza for VS2013 Preview support
From: Niall Douglas (ndouglas_at_[hidden])
Date: 2013-07-05 10:42:11

> > Once it is fully converted to Boost and
> > is mature enough that I think it reliable enough for me to draw
> > conclusions from it about other people's code, then and only then is
> > the right time to start formulating bug demonstration examples for
> > third party code.
> 
> I don't understand your
> "my-code-is-imperfect-so-third-party-libraries-are-blameless" attitude.
> The time to file a bug is when you find it. Even when writing throw-away
or pre-
> alpha code, when I see something that isn't right, I create a scratch
project and
> try to reproduce it. Then I file the bug and get on with my work. Often,
even
> before my pre-alpha project has matured, the bug has been fixed and I can
> remove my workaround. That's how it should work.

In your opinion sure, and if your code quality is anything like your C++ Now
presentation then I think you're entirely right to take that approach. You
may remember me congratulating you on that use of a volatile member function
overload as part of useful template error reporting, something I had never
previously thought of to combine with the virtual trick.

My code, on the other hand, I don't trust and I assume it to be riddled with
severe bugs which I'm too incompetent to perceive. This isn't a humility
thing, it's an empirical thing: I have had showstopping bugs found in my
open source *four* *years* after that code went stable and was being used in
anger by banks, hedge funds, the US DoD for military simulations, automotive
and avionics. And I had worked on that code for four years thereafter, and
never saw nor found those problems not once in that time period.

To which the only natural conclusion must be that I was, and am, too
incompetent to find these things on my own. Hence my hesitancy to cast
aspersions on others. Once the code base is stable and fully ported to
Boost, then I'm happy to start work on a clean ThreadSanitiser during which
I'll no doubt discover and fix a ton of problems in my code. Only then will
I feel comfortable in blaming others for problems I have found.

Niall

---
Opinions expressed here are my own and do not necessarily represent those of
BlackBerry Inc.