[boost] Recommend dropping test coverage on msvc-7.1 and msvc-8.0

Subject: [boost] Recommend dropping test coverage on msvc-7.1 and msvc-8.0
From: James E. King, III (jking_at_[hidden])
Date: 2017-10-14 11:41:48

MSVC 7.1 and MSVC 8.0 are currently listed as "tested" in the Boost 1.65.1
release notes however there are a lot of projects that do not seem to
support them well, if at all:

http://www.boost.org/development/tests/master/developer/issues.html
<http://www.boost.org/development/tests/develop/developer/issues.html>

It looks like a large number of libraries will no longer build properly
against them based on this report.  I'm not sure what the procedure is to
come to an agreement to drop a compiler in a release, but it looks like we
should consider dropping msvc-7.1 and msvc-8.0.  These are very old
compilers for Windows development.  Dropping them would also allow folks to
more easily focus on failures in this report to make sure a release is as
clean as possible and simplify the test matrix a little bit.

Appveyor only supports back to Visual Studio 2010 at this point, so our
ability to get pre-commit checks on compilers before msvc-10.0 is solely
based on maintainer effort.  I suspect this effort is no longer justified
based on the age of the compilers.

Thanks - Jim