Re: Dropping C++03 support (again)

From: Andrey Semashev (andrey.semashev_at_[hidden])
Date: 2023-02-05 10:39:55

On 2/5/23 12:09, Rainer Deyke via Boost wrote:
> On 04.02.23 14:34, Andrey Semashev via Boost wrote:
>> Is the goal to drop C++03 or unmaintained Boost libraries? Those are two
>> different goals.
>>
>> Personally, I don't think dropping any Boost libraries, even
>> unmaintained ones, benefits our users. Especially not, if it is
>> impossible to use Boost 2.x and 1.x in the same code base. And I suspect
>> that we don't want to mess with changing namespaces and macro names,
>> which means 1.x and 2.x are mutually exclusive in the same code base.
> 
> I think if we're going to break backwards compatibility anyway, we might
> as well go all out and get rid of some of the cruft that has accumulated
> in Boost that is no longer relevant in a C++11+ world.  I am thinking in
> particular of Boost libraries that exist only to emulate C++11 features
> in C++03, like Boost.Foreach.
> 
> I generally favor backwards compatibility, but I also favor a single
> clean cut over a long drawn-out process of libraries slowly breaking due
> to no longer being maintained.

There are different kinds of breakage. One is having to update Boost
library names in the linker command line. Another is having to rewrite
code that used Boost features that are no longer available, with the
potential to introduce a bug in the process. I'm fine with the former,
but not the latter.