Re: [boost] Boost on Android

Subject: Re: [boost] Boost on Android
From: Dmitry Moskalchuk (dm_at_[hidden])
Date: 2015-03-19 08:48:35

> Your NDK preceded Google's C++ support?

Yes. Google released NDK in 2009, and there was no support for C++ at
all. There was tons of requests to add C++ support from developers in
android-ndk group for a months, without any reaction from Google. Then
I've started working on adding C++ support into NDK and to the end of
2009 I've published first version of CrystaX NDK. Anyway, even after
that, being constantly pressured by developers community, Google have
added C++ support only to NDK r5 (December 2010), and it was exactly my
patches applied to the upstream (with minimal non-significant changes).
Counting from beginning, it took almost two years before Google did
that; and even when it was done, it was far from being _really_ _full_
C++ support. This is still true - Google's NDK still don't support C++
fully; in contrast with Google, we're paying special attention to do it
as good as we can.

> Actually, not necessarily. I think their average is above average, as 
> is the average of any tech multinational (they pay more, and have 
> better managers and processes than smaller firms). But I've seen 
> plenty of shockingly awful code come out of Google, same as any other 
> tech multinational. One particular problem Google has which other 
> companies don't as much are engineers who excel at looking and acting 
> better than they actually are, something I would say about myself too 
> incidentally :)

Agreed. Me too :)

> On reflection I believe I have softened my position on this, because 
> I believe you are right that quality C++ support is far down the 
> priority list for the Google NDK management. It therefore makes sense 
> to make use of the community effort at Android workarounds i.e. 
> CrystaX.
>
> Ok, here's what I would suggest. You've already got the CrystaX 
> results mounted at 
> http://www.boost.org/development/tests/develop/developer/summary.html,
>  so that's good, though you really ought to also be testing master 
> branch on Android, or least especially after the 1.58 release.

We already test both "develop" and "master". You can see "master"
results here: https://boost.crystax.net/master/developer/summary.html.
But our results are not shown yet on
http://www.boost.org/development/tests/master/developer/summary.html
because we're not yet "approved" testers (as Rene Rivera said). However,
test results are uploaded to Boost FTP so you can include our 'master'
test results at any moment by making us 'approved' here:
https://github.com/boostorg/regression/blob/develop/reports/src/boost_wide_report.py#L51.

> But 
> what I would suggest is that you campaign for a "name and shame" of 
> the top unit test failing libraries on master branch to be 
> automatically posted once per month to boost-dev, where the ranking 
> is scored by libraries consistently failing month after month. That 
> would include all regression test failures, not just CrystaX.

No objections on that; I just wondering how to do that technically? Do
you mean some existing web page? Or should we create new one? Or it
should be just once-per-month e-mail to this list?

-- 
Dmitry Moskalchuk