Re: [boost] Boost is supposed to serve *the entire C++ community; it isn't Boost's goal to serve Boost's community*

Subject: Re: [boost] Boost is supposed to serve *the entire C++ community; it isn't Boost's goal to serve Boost's community*
From: Vladimir Batov (Vladimir.Batov_at_[hidden])
Date: 2016-05-22 17:40:43

On 05/23/2016 06:09 AM, Andrey Semashev wrote:
> Actually, Ubuntu is quite proactive. The latest release is 16.04
> (which is also an LTS release) provides gcc 5.3.1 out of the box.
> Also, there is PPA[1] which provides more recent compiler
> versions.

Actually, it's the customers who are not in a hurry to install and 
"play" with "latest and greatest" for obvious reasons. Unlike children 
who are eager to play with a new "toy" and throwing tantrums when the 
rest of the world is not catching up, businesses always (from my 
experience) a version behind... be that MS Windows or Ubuntu LTS or Solaris.

My understanding is that rushing forward well ahead of the installed 
customer base causes a lot of headache as I'll then have to ship 
libraries not present on the customer machine. Then I'll have to make 
sure those correct libraries are in fact used... and fix when the 
customer screws something up (like LD_LIBRARY_PATH). So, simple 
"ship-and-forget" turns into maintenance and support on site. A nightmare.

Anything I am missing? Is there a way to play with the kids and be 
excited about C++14-only and other "cool stuff" without disrupting and 
interfering with the customer installations? After all, those customers 
"help" me to pay my bills. :-)