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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 19:36:47


On Sat, Oct 14, 2017 at 1:03 PM, Peter Dimov via Boost <
boost_at_[hidden]> wrote:

> James E. King, III wrote:
>
>> On Sat, Oct 14, 2017 at 12:33 PM, Robert Ramey via Boost <
>> boost_at_[hidden]> wrote:
>>
>
> > My point is that selection of toolchains to support and test is upto the
>> > library maintainer. There is not communal agreement necessary.
>>
>> That would be far too confusing to consumers of the boost library set.
>>
>
> "Would be" is not the appropriate tense here as the above describes the
> status quo, which has been in place for decades now.
>
> Each release of the boost library set should have a standard set of
>> compilers that are tested.
>>
>
> We had the concept of "release compilers" at one point, which was the
> subset of the matrix in which failures were considered critical obstacles
> to doing a release; but we seem to have dropped that now.
>
> To get back to your unspoken question, I think that you can with clear
> conscience drop msvc-7.1 and msvc-8.0 as supported compilers for the Format
> library.

Actually my intention was not to discuss this just for the format library -
but for all libraries.
There shouldn't be a need to support msvc-7.1 by any library at stated it
is past support and
I don't think it's worth anybody spending time dealing with it in
development or in test at this point.

Good points on my nonsense argument from before about not supporting all
the versions listed in the
release notes. Perhaps additional wording in the release notes would be
appropriate, indicating that
while a compiler may be part of the boost regression suite, that does not
indicate compatibility with
every library, so consult documentation for each library for specific
limitations. Specifically I am looking
at the "Compilers Tested" section. While msvc-7.1 is technically tested,
most libraries don't pass.

- Jim


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