Re: [boost] [test] boost.test owner unresponsive to persistent problems for multiple years

Subject: Re: [boost] [test] boost.test owner unresponsive to persistent problems for multiple years
From: Gennadiy Rozental (rogeeff_at_[hidden])
Date: 2014-12-30 03:01:54

Dave Gomboc <dave_gomboc <at> acm.org> writes:

> It seems that in addition to documentation upgrades/improvements there
> is at least also the issue of identifying all Boost.Test-related
> tickets that are currently outstanding, verifying that the issue
> raised within them is indeed resolved within the development branch
> (rather than just assuming this is true), and updating the ticket to
> reflect that the problem has been resolved in the development branch
> (though it should not be closed yet until a new Boost release comes
> out with the fix in place).

Yes - you are correct. 

> To that end, could you please provide for the Boost community a
> detailed outline of exactly what remains to be done in order for the
> merge of the latest Boost.Test to master to be completed?  

The biggest hurdle is new documentation. Once it is done all the other 
tasks will look much smaller. This includes cleaning up trac and maybe 
doing some minor fixes to address the issues there.

The next step... Well I think we have two options: either I'll post new 
docs here for short review by interested parties or we can go though 
some form of minor review process if community believes this is 
necessary.

After that we can merge. I expect backward compatibility issues to be 
minor if any. We'll need to get to the clean build state on all 
platforms and we are good to go ;0)
 
> Can you provide a list of these new features alphabetically by name
> with a one-sentence description?  Boosters can sign up for writing
> documentation paragraphs, can contribute them here, and you can
> collect and use them.

Whomever is interested to help with docs please ping me directly.

> Rather than contact people off-list, I urge you to get all of the
> outstanding work into the open and use this mailing list for
> co-ordination not only so that people can contribute without
> overlapping their effort needlessly, but so that the current status is
> visible to all of us.  

I am not sure why the nitty gritty details of development needs to be 
discussed with the mailing list. I am not hiding anything -it's just not 
very convenient IMO. One other point: most of my request for help (with 
quick book and doxygen support) on docs mailing list were left 
unanswered anyway.

> I absolutely concur with this.  Your efforts are appreciated, Gennady!
>  You've been shouldering the entire burden for too long.  I think that
> by publicly coordinating and leading the remaining effort to get the
> latest Boost.Test onto master, you'll be able to achieve this goal
> more quickly.

What left in docs:

* general reformating of existing pages and separation to "user's guide" 
and "advanced usage scenarios" (I am working on this)
* BOOST_TEST tool, including figuring out what to do with old testing 
tools description and reference
* data driven test cases (Raffi works on this)
* decorators support (Andrzej volunteered to help with this)
* run by name/label description. Including multitude of new syntax 
options
* figure out doxigen issues
* figure out new format for examples
* few minor issues with Boost.Logos
* investigate Boost.pp style left side menu (optional)
* interaction testing (optional)
* production use of Boost.Test (optional)
* anything else missing from above (hopefully nothing big)

Any takers?
Gennadiy