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Subject: Re: [Boost-users] [format] warning...warning...warning
From: Leon Mlakar (leon_at_[hidden])
Date: 2017-03-24 14:27:47


On 23.03.2017 09:45, Arnaud RICHARD via Boost-users wrote:
>
> I understand they are only warning and the code is functionally
> correct and standard-wise correct.
>
> Personally when I face such false warnings in my code, I change the
> code to remove the warning so that if a warning does make sense, I can
> notice it.
>
I used to do the same but fund such practice dangerous. It often
resulted in poorer, less "natural" code, sometimes, albeit less
frequently, degraded performance (not necessarily on platform reporting
warning but another), or would even introduce bugs, if major change was
required. Not to mention the cost of looking for balance between
different warnings on different platforms and that of regression
testing. In short, more pain than gain.

These days I prefer to selectively disable warnings I don't agree with
(via command line options if possible, or #pragmas or similar) ... and
very selectively enable warnings beyond some sensible level (defaults +
select few are usually okay).
>
> I thought a reference implementation would be written with such policy.
>
> There’s no way I’m gonna read each of the hundreds of messages to
> understand if it is a mistake in my source code or a “shortcut” in
> boost library.
>
In a multi-platform, multi-compiler version library this is often
difficult if not impossible to achieve. Not only one compiler might warn
you're not doing X and the other that you are doing it, even different
versions of the same compiler might disagree on whether X should be done
or not. Heck, even the same version might if you compile against
different language standards and/or dialects. I would find imposing any
such or similar policy counter-productive and unjustified.
>
> So this is my first user experience. Not impressed at all. Boost will
> not be my reference.
>
I, on the contrary, was impressed and still am after all these years. As
others mentioned, not only C++11 received an enormous contribution from
Boost, it is one of the few truly peer-reviewed general purpose
libraries with a huge deployment base that gives you some assurance that
many people have already found many defects that were already fixed and
you are unlikely to stumble upon one.

Cheers,
Leon



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