Re: The new Boost 17.0.0

From: Jeff Garland (azswdude_at_[hidden])
Date: 2020-11-29 16:40:55

On Sun, Nov 29, 2020 at 9:15 AM Peter Dimov via Boost <boost_at_[hidden]>
wrote:

> Jeff Garland wrote:
> > Why not just alternate releases -- so we'd have a 20 release and then a
> 17
> > release, etc?
>
> I have no idea how that's supposed to work.
>
>
The point is we wouldn't try to double the number of releases stressing the
available resources.  For libraries in both releases we would have to have
something like release20 and develop20 branches to maintain differences.
Libraries only in one of the packages wouldn't have that issue.  I'm not
claiming this is a fully formed process, but I think something like this
could be done.

> > If we did pull this off, one interesting problem that would be induced
> is
> > what various linux distros ship with...
>
> Linux distros ship Boost built with the default gcc, with the default C++
> standard. g++ defaults to C++03 before g++-6, to C++14 before g++-11. A
> C++17 Boost will be unshippable for a while. C++14 is kind of acceptable
> today.
>
>
Believe g++10 is now c++14 by default and is on Fedora32 -- redhat 8 also
has a version available to customers.

The other major consumer of pre-C++11 Boost are non-mainstream platforms
> such as z/OS, where people are still stuck with C++03.
>
> See e.g.
>
> https://github.com/boostorg/build/issues/534
> https://github.com/boostorg/build/issues/535
> https://github.com/boostorg/build/issues/519
> https://github.com/boostorg/build/issues/511
> https://github.com/boostorg/build/issues/473
> https://github.com/boostorg/build/issues/471
>

Thanks.  I'm less concerned with supporting them frankly.  They have a
boost that they can use now -- the rest of us can move on.