Re: [boost] Candidate for 1.66.1, if there is one

Subject: Re: [boost] Candidate for 1.66.1, if there is one
From: Robert Ramey (ramey_at_[hidden])
Date: 2017-12-23 21:25:46

On 12/23/17 10:49 AM, Steven Watanabe via Boost wrote:
>    I think something like this should be stored in git
> along with tests, rather being maintained directly by
> the test infrastructure. 

In my brain I'm incline to fuse following:
a) test system
b) build system
c) source control/git/..

This kind of makes sense since each of these is dependent on same file 
layout, naming conventions, scripts, etc.

I agree with your statement above and with Peters on the opinion on the 
same subject.  That is, writing code to create previous versions would 
really be an orthogonal issue to testing ability to read previous 
archive versions.  This latter would/should/could be implemented by 
making the the "test infrastructure" that much more elaborate.  It 
doesn't take too much imagination to figure out how much enthusiasm I or 
anyone else could muster up for that.

  (We really want the format
> to be memorialised for all time, regardless of future
> changes to the test system). It should be pretty simple
> to set up for portable archive formats. 

Right. I'm not even sure it could be done for binary archives given the 
evolution in compilers/libraries etc.

> The main problem
> that I see is sorting out which binary archive is for
> the current platform.

since binary archives are not likely to be used for longer term storage, 
the problem would/could be ignored for this case.  Of course someone 
would raise the issue about using serialization to pass data on the wire 
between different versions of the application.

This is all quite interesting.  But I'm inclined to just accept the fact 
that I/we can't solve every problem.  The number of cases that this 
problem has actually occurred is pretty small, especially when

Since I burned myself on this in a bad way in may 2010, the number of 
cases that this problem has actually occurred is very, very small. 
Somehow I'm thinking that it won't happen to Mr. King again at least.

Robert Ramey