The new Boost 17.0.0

From: Mike (mike.dev_at_[hidden])
Date: 2020-11-28 16:47:04

> Gesendet: Samstag, 28. November 2020 um 13:28 Uhr
> Von: "Paul A Bristow via Boost" <boost_at_[hidden]>
>
>
> The difficulty with our strategy is selling it to potential users who are desperate to be able to
> tick a box marked 'Cxx-supported'.
> It gives them a warm feeling, but little in reality.

Aren't you dismissing the voiced concerns too easily?
I want to be able to interact with libraries using standard library vocabulary types
and I don't want my compiletimes to explode when using them. Supporting
old c++ standards as many boost libs do can be a problem for both of
those goal:
- Apparently a lot of the compilation slowdown is due to the use of
  boost.MPL, which could be replaced in c++11 by mp11 or language constructs.
- Obviously a c++03 lib can't use std::chrono::duration or std::string_view
  in its interface. The former can sometimes be added as additional overload
  if available, however, adding the latter almost certainly leads to ambiguous
  overload resolution situations. So instead I have to convert the c++11/17/20
  types into the appropriate boost types.

I'm naming just the two examples that are most relavant to me (I can think of a
few more) but the point is:
This is not about "having a warm feeling", but about the real costs for users
that are a result from the continued support of c++03 and in particular the usage
of boost types that have been "merged" into the standard library orthe language.

The difficult part is to place numbers on those costs and especially putting them
in relation to the boost user base. It may very well be, that most of the people
that are still using boost at all don't use more recent standards or that those
costs are insigificantt to them and that the people complaining about the state
of boost the loudest don't have any real interest in using boost anyway. Point in
case: Almost all projects I'm involved in have removed their boost dependencies
if they had any to begin with.
So people like me might simply not be a relevant target audience for boost.

Best

Mike

>
> PS And KISS applies?  (Keep Is Simple Sirs)
>

There is a lot that can be said about boost but "simple" is certainly not
something that comes to mind. Certainly not when we are talking about the
implementation and - depending on the lib - not even when considering their
usage.