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

Subject: Re: [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 13:09:58

On Sat, Oct 14, 2017 at 9:02 AM, Daniel James via Boost <
boost_at_[hidden]> wrote:

> On 14 October 2017 at 12:41, James E. King, III via Boost
> <boost_at_[hidden]> wrote:
> >
> > 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.
>
> They can now be marked as unusable from your very own repo, I haven't
> documented it yet, but an example that does that:
>
> https://github.com/boostorg/contract/blob/develop/meta/
> explicit-failures-markup.xml
>
> That will grey out the results in the test matrix, making it easier to
> read, and there's no need to drop the test results for anyone who
> finds them useful.
>
>
Thanks that is useful!  I'm still concerned about limiting the scope of
reasonable testing
effort and compiler support to reduce the amount of maintenance and test
matrix systems
for the project overall.  It seems fairly clear from those test matrix
results that msvc-7.1
and msvc-8.0 are no longer healthily supported by many libraries, and as
previously
stated both of those compiler suites are past end of support.

I think that result matrix is most useful when it doesn't have that many
things in it, so
folks can focus on closing down a release.  I'm not sure if graying out the
items will help
identify problem spots.  If there was a way to filter out certain toolset
identifiers, on the
page, that might solve that problem.

- Jim