Re: The new Boost 17.0.0

From: Dominique Devienne (ddevienne_at_[hidden])
Date: 2020-11-27 15:32:41

On Fri, Nov 27, 2020 at 3:15 PM Glen Fernandes via Boost <
boost_at_[hidden]> wrote:

> Speaking only for myself as an author of a Boost library, maintainer
> of many Boost libraries, and contributor to many Boost libraries,  as
> well as being involved in the Boost release process:
>
> 1. Based on my personal knowledge of Boost users, as well as e-mails
> to the Boost developers lists (boost_at_...), and the Boost Owners  lists
> (boost-owner_at_...) from users such as:
>    -    @us.af.mil  (US Airforce)
>    -   @nasa.gov  (NASA)
>   and others
>
> I would not be in favor of a Boost distribution that requires anything
> higher than C++11 for existing libraries. i.e. Not C++17 or even
> C++14.
>

But that's basically Boost as it stands, i.e. Boost 1.x.
I don't think anyone's proposing to drop that.

> 2. Based on first hand accounts of certain users choosing not to
> migrate to C++20 because of a silently breaking change in the language
> affecting their code (operator== rewriting rules, which has even
> broken certain Boost libraries like Rational), I would certainly not
> be in favor of changing existing Boost libraries to require C++20 for
> anything in an official Boost distribution.
>

But isn't this just a "teething" issue? I see Ville already replied in fact.

There will of course be few large codebases making the jump to C++20 in the
near future, after all we're still in 2020 and that standard is just
hot-off-the-press.

But we're discussing the next 10-20 years of Boost, not the next 10 months.
And only to start Boost 2.x, not to abandon Boost 1.x.

You are of course a pillar of Boost, while I'm a nobody, so what I say
doesn't matter much,
but either modules (and concepts) are a game changer, and it's worth
modularizing Boost
(not at the Git level, but C++ level), or C++20 modules are a mis-feature
and then indeed
why ever start a Boost 2.x? I'm of course referring to full-blown modules,
not just wrapping
headers to have glorified precompiled headers (although I'm out of my depth
here, so I'd
better shut-up :)). My $0.02. --DD