Re: [Boost-users] Compilers supported by a given library

From: Edward Diener (eddielee_at_[hidden])
Date: 2006-06-08 23:27:10

Peter Dimov wrote:
> Edward Diener wrote:
> 
>> Boost really needs a table which specifically says, for any given
>> release in the future, which compilers are supported for which
>> libraries. Anything short of that is confusing and will cause end user
>> problems.
> 
> How would we know what to put in the table?

If you, the author of Boost libraries, do not know what compilers work 
correctly with your libraries, imagine how the user of one of your 
libraries feels when he tries to determine whether his compiler will 
work with your library. Really, Peter, I find it disingenuous that you 
believe it is not your responsibility to know or document what compilers 
work with your library. It is equivalent to a library author saying that 
his implementation may or may not work with a user's particular 
compiler, but the end user can figure it out somehow nonetheless. That 
is really some attitude for Boost developers to take. If you said that 
you did not know whether a compiler worked with your libraries because 
you did not have that compiler/platform, that is understandable, but if 
I were a library implementor I would assume it was my responsibility to 
find out one way or another, at least among the compilers which are 
popular and often used by developers on the platform(s) I supported.

> I do what I can to support 
> whatever is being regression tested and/or whatever is being bug-reported 
> against. Many of these are platforms that I never use.

That is partially understandable. See above.

> 
> The regression test matrix is the only reliable place that shows what works. 

The regression test matrix appears to be tests by different testers of 
different libraries, and certainly not of all librariews which may or 
may not work for a particular compiler which Boost supports in some way. 
I have rarely been able to make sense of what actually does work with 
what compiler. Is this a failing of mine to understand the matrix ? Is 
the matrix really a complete record of all Boost supported compilers and 
their tests against all libraries which ostensibly support a compiler ? 
What if there is no regression test of a particular compiler against a 
particular library ? Does that mean that the library does not support 
the compiler, or might it mean that nobody has submitted a test of that 
library with that compiler ? These are all serious questions I am asking 
because from what I see the regression tests do not absolutely answer 
what compilers work with the different Boost libraries. But maybe I am 
just missing the ability to interpret the regression tests correctly as 
an absolute indication of which Boost support compilers work with which 
libraries.