Re: [boost] Review quality [ was stack trace review]

Subject: Re: [boost] Review quality [ was stack trace review]
From: Vladimir Batov (Vladimir.Batov_at_[hidden])
Date: 2017-01-02 16:48:53

On 2017-01-03 07:35, Robert Ramey wrote:
> On 1/2/17 12:08 PM, Vladimir Batov wrote:
>> ...
>> The problem with the incubator IMO is that it does not provide any
>> guarantee whatsoever that the library will be 
>> accepted/around/maintained
>> in the future.
> 
> No one - not even boost - can make such a guarantee.

Oh, come on. Of course, nothing in life is guaranteed. I can't guarantee 
I wake up tomorrow morning. But surely we all understand what I was 
trying to say. Is there really anything to debate/discuss here?

>> The deployment requirements might well be different for
>> other people but my situation is that we simply cannot include an
>> external library/dependency without such a guarantee.
> 
> I do not think a real world product can depend on anything outside
> it's own organization. This is the motivation behind open source
> code.

I simply described the "real-world" project/product I am involved in. 
I've been doing it for quite some time and as far as I can remember all 
those "real-world" projects were using external libs and Boost has 
always been one of them. Forgive my saying but to say "I do not think a 
real world product can depend on anything outside it's own organization" 
seems very much out of touch with this very real-world... unless I 
misunderstood/misinterpreted it.

>> The burden/impact of retiring/replacing a no-longer-supported library 
>> is likely to be
>> unacceptably high.
> 
> Here is the way a Boost - or any other library should be used.
> 
> 0) determine that a library is suitable to one's sitation
> 1) clone the library(ies) to one's local system.
> 2) If the libraries require building - build them
> 3) run tests on all libaries used.
> 4) build and link product/application
> 5) run application tests
> 
> On "upgrade" of libraries or tools
> 
> 1) update some libraries which need it
> 2) run tests on all libraries
> 3) re-build ap and re-run app tests
> 
> So in no way should you be depending on something outside of your
> control.  You should depend only on your local copy.  This is true for
> any library accepted into boost or not!!!

There seems to be misunderstanding as I was not referring to a local 
copy. It's not an issue. It appears obvious to me that an external lib 
(local copy or not) is outside of my control... unless I am prepared to 
take responsibility of maintaining the lib... which is not an option. 
With Boost that risk is minimal (practically non-existent); with 
incubator that risk is quite high. Others might disagree.