Re: [Boost-users] Coordinating Boost Releases with compiler releases

Subject: Re: [Boost-users] Coordinating Boost Releases with compiler releases
From: degski (degski_at_[hidden])
Date: 2019-03-14 15:10:20

On Thu, 14 Mar 2019 at 16:52, Marshall Clow via Boost-users <
boost-users_at_[hidden]> wrote:

> In the thread "MSVC 2019 and 1.70 beta", there has been a discussion about
> what to do about support for MSVC 2019, which is due to be released right
> about the same time that Boost 1.70.  One person suggested that we delay
> the boost release until after the MSVC release (I think the suggestion was
> "May").
>

 I was referring to *this* May [it's a European thing, better ignore it]
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theresa_May>. I meant [and wrote] to delay
it by the time it takes to cycle the tests (i.e measured in days, not weeks
or months).

This general question has been discussed before (several times), since
> tools get released fairly often - and so does Boost.
>
> In general, I am not in favor of delaying boost releases in order to add
> support for 'about to be released' development tools.  There are two main
> reasons for this:
>
> * There's always another compiler / tool about to be released.   Clang 8
> is imminent - currently at RC5.  GCC 9.1 is scheduled to be released in
> early May.
>

Yes, yes, but this is a major release (a as per the latest releases, a 2
year event).

* Boost releases happen every four months. August is not really that far
> off. People who want support for tool XXXX can use "the trunk", getting it
> either from git or from bintray.
> [ Everyone knows about the tarballs at bintray, right?
> https://dl.bintray.com/boostorg/master/ ]
>

But trunk has not been rubber-stamped, so (possibly) many users cannot use
it.

Also, if we were to delay the boost release until May, then what would
> happen to the August release?  The release process for 1.71.0 is scheduled
> to start at the end of June.
>

We are talking days, and as you say, Boost releases happen every 4 months,
so what's the harm in delaying it some days?

degski
-- 
*"Big boys don't cry" - **Eric Stewart, Graham Gouldman*