Re: [Boost-users] Ease of use vs. stability

Subject: Re: [Boost-users] Ease of use vs. stability
From: OvermindDL1 (overminddl1_at_[hidden])
Date: 2010-01-18 20:20:03

On Mon, Jan 18, 2010 at 4:48 PM, Ruediger Berlich
<ruediger.berlich_at_[hidden]> wrote:
> Hi there,
>
> I am using a multitude of different Boost libraries in my code. Since that
> code is growing quickly, I am increasingly running into bugs which I
> (sometimes) consider to be on Boost's side.
>
> Allowing only selected Boost versions which are known to run fine with my
> code would allow me to keep that code simpler and thus less error-prone. As
> my main platform is Linux, however, which usually comes with a given version
> of Boost (currently often 1.39), my users would be forced to compile Boost
> themselves, which will mean that they are less likely to start using my
> code.
>
> If I generally allow all Boost versions above a given version, I have to
> work around known bugs in certain Boost versions, at the expense of code
> simplicity and thus stability. However, it will be easier for users to adopt
> my code.
>
> Which strategy did you pick for your code ?

Using the boost tool bcp you can include the parts of boost that your
code requires, and your build scripts can fall back to using the
system version if it would work instead or is newer and so forth if
you wanted, else you could just always use the one that is included.