Re: [boost] Header Inclusion practices

Subject: Re: [boost] Header Inclusion practices
From: Brook Milligan (brook_at_[hidden])
Date: 2017-04-12 16:08:31

> On Apr 12, 2017, at 9:34 AM, Robert Ramey via Boost <boost_at_[hidden]> wrote:
> 
> After considering all this, I'm thinking we should should just drop the zipfile distribution.  The whole focus on "release" should be assign the magic tag to the master in github - "Release 1.63".  If someone else want's to build and distribute the zipfiles, let them do it but I don't think we should promote it as the preferred way for users to acquire boost.  By adopting this point of view, and a couple small changes (e.g. requiring html documentation inside each project) we would have a "modular boost" which is much easier to maintain and work with.

I strongly disagree with this sentiment.  The purpose of a release is to provide some guarantees that the things being released are vetted, work smoothly together, etc.  If the process devolves to just a tagging, then the burden of verification is transferred to the users, and the entire exercise loses one of the most valuable elements: assurance of quality.

There are already too many examples of projects with no formal release process.  These provide no formal quality control, potentially lead to inconsistencies, and increase the burden on users.  I feel that Boost would be taking a large step backward to adopt similar approaches.

Cheers,
Brook