Re: [Boost-users] boost process : how to use it

Subject: Re: [Boost-users] boost process : how to use it
From: Boris Schäling (boris_at_[hidden])
Date: 2014-01-09 17:19:00

On Tue, 07 Jan 2014 17:44:10 +0100, Vincent R. <forumer_at_[hidden]>  
wrote:

> Hi,
>
> What is the status of boost:process, when looking on internet you can  
> find different version that are more or less compatible.
> [...]

Let me try to answer all questions from this thread:

The latest version of what everyone calls Boost.Process is  
<http://www.highscore.de/boost/process0.5/>. As this version looks very  
different than the previous ones I recommend ignoring all other  
Boost.Process versions.

The last change is from December 2012. It doesn't mean though that  
development has stopped. To a certain extent the version is complete. It  
is based on a relatively new proposal from Jeff Flinn, and all the changes  
(regarding code, unit tests and documentation) in 2012 were done to bring  
Jeff's proposal to life. That again made me propose the latest version for  
a new review.

All of that doesn't mean that the version is perfect. I'm in contact with  
many people by email, and there are from time to time various discussions  
(by email) on how to improve the library. In fact I've a list of problems  
which I know should be worked on.

The majority of problems however have to do with the question how  
conceptual differences between supported platforms should be treated. As  
the library is under construction for about 8 years I believe we have the  
knowledge and even the code for every desired feature an official version  
1.0 of a C++ process management library should support. But we struggle  
with agreeing on red lines.

 From a maintenance point of view Boost.Process is as much supported as any  
other Boost library (or actually most of them if you know what I mean :).  
That said if you run into a bug let me know - I'm usually quick trying to  
reproduce and fix it (as of today there are no known bugs).

Overall, the library might be far from perfect. But it does allow you to  
do whatever you want when it comes to process management. In that sense I  
believe it has a lot in common with C++. ;)

Boris