Re: [boost] [asio] Issues piling up

Subject: Re: [boost] [asio] Issues piling up
From: Domen Vrankar (domen.vrankar_at_[hidden])
Date: 2018-10-12 08:24:51

On Fri, Oct 12, 2018, 02:09 Vinnie Falco via Boost <boost_at_[hidden]>
wrote:

Snip

> There are quite a few useful, complete features which contributors
> have taken the time to develop and submit but which have languished
> with no response, sometimes for years. Examples:
>
> Added wolfSSL Compatability for Asio instead of OpenSSL (5 months)
> <https://github.com/chriskohlhoff/asio/pull/321>
>
> LibreSSL compatibility (1 year 7 months)
> <https://github.com/chriskohlhoff/asio/pull/196>
>
> Add DTLS support to asio (2 years)
> <https://github.com/chriskohlhoff/asio/pull/129>
>
> This one in particular is so sad, people have come back periodically
> to beg for attention to the issue but they are met with silence:
>
> Fix #116: Enables ECDHE temporary parameters in ASIO SSL #
> <https://github.com/chriskohlhoff/asio/pull/117>
>
> Some of these pull requests even manage to elicit lively and
> productive discussions and revisions, but there's no official
> response.
>

I'm not too familiar with inner structure of asio but these pull requests
seem really intrusive and of type "when new ssl lib comes along it should
also be added direclty into asio lib" so it doesn't surprise me that they
weren't accepted.

That being said my guess would be that the same issue will arize with
Networking TS once it gets merged into C++ - and there pull requests for
such features must go through std library maintainers and the c++
committee. This makes me wonder if the patches are even the correct
solution or would they be better as a standalone library(es) that don't
need to polute asio with every man and his ssl version?

> It would be nice to be able to close issues in Boost.Asio which are no
> longer relevant or resolved, to reduce the noise.
>
> To be clear, I am not suggesting that someone else should maintain the
> library. I am only bringing attention to the fact that there is a lack
> of official responses to issues in Asio's respective repositories, and
> that pull requests are often ignored. This affects me indirectly,
> since Beast is built on Asio. For example, I have to keep hearing from
> users about the "Boost.Coroutine is deprecated" warning:
>
> <https://travis-ci.org/vinniefalco/beast/jobs/439893521#L1212>
>
> This is because Asio uses Boost.Coroutine which is supposedly
> deprecated. But there is an impasse between the authors of those
> respective libraries (Boost.Coroutine2 requires C++11, and Asio only
> requires C++03). And me and my users are the casualties.
>

I am using the experimental coroutine TS asio extensions (although I have a
memory leak that still need to see if it's my code, coroutine TS [both vs
c++ and clang], asio or beast issue) and there are also other options of
using asio (all of them without the need of changing either asio or beast
lib) so since boost.coroutine lib is being dropped dropping the feature in
favour of existing alternatives is also an option so I'm once again
wondering if the resolution is not the lack of maintanence but author's
decision to discontinue this (would be the logical move imho) - only the
author can answer.

Just my 2 cents.

Regards,
Domen

>