Re: [Boost-users] [filesystem][xpressive] Hotfix patches available for 1.36.0

From: Michael Marcin (mike.marcin_at_[hidden])
Date: 2008-08-29 13:11:05

Beman Dawes wrote:
> Hotfix patches are available to fix Boost.Filesystem and Boost.Xpressive 
> [1.36.0] problems. See 
> https://svn.boost.org/trac/boost/wiki/ReleasePractices/HotFixes
> 
> Providing hotfix patches is something new and experimental for Boost. 
> Please let us know if you find the patches useful or have other comments.
> 

Are these libraries usable without these hotfixes or should they be 
considered required?

At my company we use Boost directly and use libraries that depend on 
Boost. We push those developers to upgrade their libraries when a new 
version of Boost is released and we realize that it is a burden on them 
and us to make the switch to the new versions.

Generally this means there is a lag between release and adoption as we 
cannot move forward with a new version of Boost until all the third 
party libraries that we interface with upgrade their libraries to the 
new version of Boost.

In my opinion this makes hotfixes worse than useless for us. We might 
not be able to upgrade to Boost+libraries that use Boost. For instance 
if library A upgrades to 1.36 plain and library B upgrades to 1.36 plus 
all or some of the hotfixes. If this compatibility problem occurs and 
the libraries also provide critical fixes to their own library then I 
believe we are stuck and must either drop the library, drop boost, or 
wait for everything to resynchronize.

I may be overreacting but this seems very dangerous to me.

If there are critical fixes I'd much rather have a point release which 
we can easily identify to the third party library providers. If the 
fixes are not critical enough to justify making a point release than 
they should wait until the next release.

Thanks,

Michael Marcin