Re: [boost] Current Guidance on Compiler Warnings?

Subject: Re: [boost] Current Guidance on Compiler Warnings?
From: Robert Ramey (ramey_at_[hidden])
Date: 2018-11-22 01:10:30

On 11/19/18 11:20 AM, Brian Kuhl via Boost wrote:
> I'd like to confirm the guidance on Warnings I find here
> https://svn.boost.org/trac10/wiki/Guidelines/WarningsGuidelines
> is still considered current?
> 
> context ...
> 
> At Wind River we are in the process of working with Boost 1.68 and VxWorks
> 7 (with Dinkum 7.00  with and Clang  6.0 for ARM and IA boards and  GCC 8.1
> for PowerPC ) with the hope of bundling Boost with our product.
> 
> Many of our customers make certified systems ( Planes, Trains, Medical
> Equipment, Factory Automation, etc. ) and the trend in theses industries is
> to be pedantic about eliminating all compiler warnings.
> 
> While we have not traditionally required zero warnings in open source code
> shipped with our product, there is pressure on us to move in that
> direction, and as result we will probably be contributing pull requests
> specifically to fix or suppress compiler warnings over the coming years.
> 
> I'd like to establish clear guidelines for my team as to what is an
> appropriate "coding standard" for Boost in regards to compiler warnings.
> While it is simple to say, everything displayed by -Wall, in practice there
> are many edge cases,  e.g. is an unused parameter acceptable in test code?
> So I'd like to get the maintainers guidance.
> 

 From my perspective, this would be OK.  OK - one changes some perfectly 
fine code to address a warning so we have easily verifiable "clean" 
code. It's just a little BS to keep everyone happy and it does help find 
some errors.  When one makes code for multiple compilers - it's a whole 
'nuther ball game.  to make one's code pass warning free in such an 
environment ends up cluttering the code with lots of ... clutter. 
Remember we've got libraries support dozens of compilers - counting 
previous versions.  In this environment, it's a fools errand.

Robert Ramey