Re: [boost] [test] Boost.test failures in develop

Subject: Re: [boost] [test] Boost.test failures in develop
From: Raffi Enficiaud (raffi.enficiaud_at_[hidden])
Date: 2015-10-07 08:29:10

Le 07/10/15 12:20, Jürgen Hunold a écrit :
> Hi Raffi,
>
>
> Most libraries use deprecation warnings like
>
> #if defined(__GNUC__) || defined(_MSC_VER)
> # pragma message("NOTE: Use of this header
> (boost/type_traits/broken_compiler_spec.hpp) is deprecated")
> #endif
>
> at least for whole headers. A simple grep for "DEPRECATION" reveals several
> libraries using conditional compilation, too.

Hi Jürgen,

Thank you for those information. Maybe also transforming the warning 
into an error after some increment of release...

>
>> - apart from public announcement of deprecation, is there currently any
>> other way or good practice for making changes to the public API?
>
> Besides a fat warning in the header, no. Modern compilers support
> "__declspec(deprecated)" and "__declspec(deprecated(message))" mechanism.
> Adding support for this to Boost.Config would allow to deprecate single
> functions etc. That is the way Qt does handle deprecation.

I was expecting some support in boost.config for that for having it 
clean, but apparently there is nothing.

>
>> - if there is a deprecation, what is the amount of time before the
>> deprecated feature is dropped, in terms of releases or years? Is boost
>> clear on that or is it on the hands of the library maintainers? I think
>> it would be good to unify this.
>
> As usual, a maintainer decision. I'd like to have 3 release (aka 1 year) as
> minimum. Longer periods don't really make sense, as the user base is divided
> into an "update early" and an "update only in emergency/feature need"
> partitions. And for the latter even 5 years might be too short...

Ok thanks.

> And by the way, can you publish the "boost_run_test" CMake function used in
> Boost.Test? This would make adapting my own CMake rules easier.

This is an old unmaintained CMakeLists.txt that I should remove at some 
point. I believe this is pointing to the boost-cmake project. I have my 
own though, see the branch topic/CMakelist-txt (or commit 8fac3b6 on 
develop).

Raffi