Re: [boost] Some statistics about the C++ 11/14 mandatory Boost libraries

Subject: Re: [boost] Some statistics about the C++ 11/14 mandatory Boost libraries
From: Vladimir Prus (vladimir.prus_at_[hidden])
Date: 2015-05-18 03:20:38

On 5/13/2015 9:34 PM, Niall Douglas wrote:
> On 13 May 2015 at 14:12, Edward Diener wrote:
>
>> So for each library you want the library maintainer to periodically
>> check every past and present version of a library it depends on and
>> document what dependencies it has and what versions of those
>> dependencies works with the library.
>>
>> Forgive me if I find such a task a bit overburdening. This means that if
>> my library X depends on A, B, and C I must test my library first against
>> past versions of A, B, and C, in all possible combinations, and then
>> must susbsequently test my library against any new versions of A. B. and
>> C, in all possible combinations. Furthermore whenever I update library X
>> I must go through the full procedure once again.
>>
>> I cannot conceive that such a manual versioning scheme is workable.
>
> Then you are highly unaware of the tooling available to automate
> this.
>
> Travis can run, per commit,
> http://ispras.linuxbase.org/index.php/ABI_compliance_checker which
> ensures that ABI and API have not broken for a given API version of a
> given library. Each API version lives in its own git branch.

That will only test ABI compatibility at best. Unless you suggest
that version 1 and version 2 of a library do not share any source
code, it's quite possible that version 2 will break functionality
in subtle ways, while retaining API/ABI, and there are not tools
to check for that without testing.

Thanks,
Volodya