Re: Future of C++ and Boost

From: Peter Dimov (pdimov_at_[hidden])
Date: 2022-05-05 18:32:36

James E. King III wrote:
> I may not understand the concerns there, but in general what I was
> suggesting was:
> 
> 1. Stop testing C++03 in CI
> 2. Stop advertising C++03 support in repositories
> 3. Make it clear that C++11 is required to use boost >= 1.8X
> 4. Close issues that involve C++03 specifically (likely not that many)
> 5. Allow repositories to accept C++11 compliant pull requests
> 6. Come up with a project-wide rule, for example that boost will
>     support 3 back-revisions of C++ so the future is more predictable.
> 
> Libraries do not need to immediately rework themselves.
> 
> They simply no longer need to consider it broken when C++03
> no longer builds properly.

I agree with Jim's points above. This was my exact suggestion in the
past, that we need to drop C++03 globally at the Boost level, and I
only wrote up the policy by which individual libraries can do so

https://pdimov.github.io/articles/phasing_out_cxx03.html

when we failed to reach a consensus on the above points.

The arguments in

https://pdimov.github.io/articles/phasing_out_cxx03.html#_ongoing_costs_of_maintaining_c03_support

still stand.

At this point we might as well move straight to C++14, it being the
default on most not-yet-dead distros (with the notable exception of
CentOS 7, I suppose.)