Re: [boost] Status of Visual Studio 2017 support

Subject: Re: [boost] Status of Visual Studio 2017 support
From: Beman Dawes (bdawes_at_[hidden])
Date: 2017-02-14 18:33:59

On Tue, Feb 14, 2017 at 1:07 PM, Stephan T. Lavavej via Boost <
boost_at_[hidden]> wrote:

> [Andrey Semashev]
> > the final release may be significantly different from the pre-released
> versions.
> > It is not unheard of entire features being removed or modified in the
> final release.
>
> Our process is that between Previews and RC, we enter "ask mode" (ask for
> permission to make changes), and between RC and RTM we enter "escrow mode",
> which is a very strict lockdown. The only bugs that are fixed in escrow
> mode are of the form "it's melting users' hard drives and the metal fumes
> are making people dizzy".
>
> VS 2017 is a little different than before (in that we've intentionally had
> 4 release candidates so far, although not prominently branded as such), but
> we're definitely locked down now. A useful heuristic is that when we've
> publicly announced the release date for RTM, as we recently did (March 7),
> the time for major changes is long past.
>
> The toolset (compiler/linker/libraries), which is what Boost is interested
> in, also locks down before the rest of the product, because we're at a low
> level in the stack. Throughout 10 years in Visual C++, I've taken several
> fixes through ask mode, but never through escrow mode that I can recall.
> We're focused on the next toolset update at the moment.
>
> For Boost, the policy I would recommend is: treat Previews as unsupported
> (major feature changes in them), but attempt to support RC builds when they
> appear. This will lead to better synchronization between Boost and VS
> releases.
>

+1

Times of changed; Microsoft and other compiler vendors used to be very
close lipped about what would actually be in a release. Nowadays the C++
community gets lots of notice and multiple release candidates well ahead of
releases. There is much more openness, and lots of two-way conversations,
both public and private. Times have changed.

The Visual Studio 2017 release is big deal - it means all major compilers
now support virtually all C++11 and C++14 features, and Boost library
maintainers can drop support for non-C++11 compilers in good conscience.
The sooner Boost Build and other aspects of boost support msvc 2017, the
better, IMO.

--Beman