Re: [boost] New dependency report

Subject: Re: [boost] New dependency report
From: Edward Diener (eldiener_at_[hidden])
Date: 2014-06-07 08:19:56

On 6/7/2014 5:23 AM, Daniel James wrote:
> On 7 June 2014 05:47, Edward Diener <eldiener_at_[hidden]> wrote:
>> On 6/6/2014 5:23 PM, Daniel James wrote:
>>>
>>> On 6 June 2014 21:41, Edward Diener <eldiener_at_[hidden]> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Looking through code in MPL, and other long-standing libraries may be
>>>> similar, the need to keep compiler workarounds in the code for compilers
>>>> which are obsolete, or do not implement basic parts of even the C++ 98
>>>> standard, makes understanding and updating code fairly difficult in many
>>>> cases. I believe that Boost has a right to say to those who still want to
>>>> use some of these compilers with Boost that they will have to stick to
>>>> previous versions. It really becomes difficult for a number of Boost
>>>> libraries to move forward if they have to continually support poorly
>>>> conforming compilers. As obvious examples I would not bother trying to
>>>> support VC++ versions prior to VS2005/VC8 and I would not bother trying
>>>> to
>>>> support gcc versions prior to 4.0 etc.
>>>
>>>
>>> It would be nice if you responded to what I wrote rather than what you
>>> imagined I wrote. The problem with the MPL changes was that they were
>>> non-trivial, and for a library which is very arcane (with or without
>>> workarounds), has little maintenance and a lot of dependants, some of
>>> which are unmaintained. Also, many of the dependants hadn't merged
>>> Stephen Kelly's changes (some still haven't) and it wasn't clear if it
>>> was safe to merge MPL before them. It was nothing to do with
>>> maintaining support for Visual C++ 7.0.
>>
>>
>> What does the quoted contents above have anything to do to what you wrote
>> anywhere ? In other words my response was to a post by John Maddock and has
>> nothing to do with anything you wrote on this thread.
>
> It's do with what I wrote in objection to Stephen Kelly's changes to
> MPL, this would have been clearer if I hadn't cut my reply to the
> previous paragraph:
>
> On 6 June 2014 21:41, Edward Diener <eldiener_at_[hidden]> wrote:
>>
>> Based on Stephen Kelly's recommendations I actually removed a bunch of old
>> workarounds in MPL for compilers which we don't support anymore. I even
>> posted about it on this mailing list. But Daniel james objected to this
>> being done for the 'develop' branch of MPL so I posted the change to a
>> remote branch of MPL called 'remotes/origin/mfixes'.
>
> I removed the quote and my reply because you clarified in your other
> mail that it was wrong:
>
> On 6 June 2014 22:20, Edward Diener <eldiener_at_[hidden]> wrote:
>> I gave the wrong information. The changes were actually pushed on MPL to
>> 'remotes/origin/SKChanges'. At one point there were in MPL 'develop' and
>> having watched the regression tests I wanted to merge them into MPL
>> 'master'. I believe Daniel James reverted them on 'develop'. My
>> 'remotes/origin/mfixes' was something else related to testing clang on
>> Windows with VC++ RTL.
>
> In both emails you named me as the person objecting to changes.

Which was true, you objected to the changes and therefore I did not 
follow through by updating 'master' from those changes in 'develop'.

> So,
> you're arguing for changes I reverted, and making clear that I
> reverted them. That does suggest that this what you're writing has a
> lot to do with my objections to them. If it didn't, why mention me
> twice?

I just mentioned what factually occurred.

> The implication of your mail is that the changes were reverted
> in order to keep support for compilers such as Visual C++ 7.0, which
> is not true.

You are reading into my current replies to John Maddock and Peter Dimov 
things which are not there and then accusing me of not replying "to what 
I wrote rather than what you imagined I wrote". Please do not do that. I 
was not replying to you in either situation. I was just giving my 
opinion about supporting obsolete compilers in the first instance and 
factually giving information about MPL changes in the second instance. I 
did not offer criticism of you in either case.

> This is what I wrote back in March:
>
> On 20 March 2014 22:39, Daniel James <dnljms_at_[hidden]> wrote:
>> I think the best thing to do for MPL is to revert Stephen Kelly's changes,
>> and put them on a branch so that they can be reconsidered later.

And indeed I put them on a branch and brought that to Peter Dimov's 
notice recently in reply to his current posts.

> I'm not
>> saying they're bad - at the very least, removing support for old versions of
>> Visual C++ is a good idea. But I think we need to sort out the libraries'
>> dependants first. I'm going to try to start on some of these soon, but it'll
>> take a while.