Basically I would love to copy the tutorial to my own project and edit it to make my test. That might sound ridiculous - but that's would I would like to be able it do.
Could you be more specific: what kind of tutorial, what topics should cover?
But my position is that we need to consciously move away from old compilers to make code base healthier.
Requirement for feature compiler support is also scaring. I would really prefer not to do this.
I'm not sure what this refers to.
For example you just commented out random order of test cases feature support Now I need to mark in docs this particular compiler doesn't support this feature. This is some work to maintain such a table.
This looks like two contradictory goals: you may not be able to solve someone problem in 2 hour using facility with minimal functionality
LOL - again I think you're underestimating the impact even a minimal facility can have. Remember that the usual alternative is to do no unit testing at all.
In my personal opinion from usability/learning curve stand point there is no reasons to use anything but complete Unit Test Framework. It's just as easy and in a long term much more powerful.
I envision a common situation - (In fact, at this very moment I'm stuck on another project and I find my self in this exact situation). I'm working on my next wizbang project and I'm under huge pressure to fix a bug. I've been working on it for days with no luck. Now I realize that its much deeper than I thought and that it could be anywhere. In desperation I look to boost and find Boost Test. The introduction shows me the joys of unit testing which I haven't been using. I'm really desperate and will try anything that only takes two hours to try. I down load boost headers. Copy the tutorial example from boost test an make a test for one of my routines. 2 hours. Still haven't found my bug but since I still don't know what to do I repeat the processes for the rest of the program. The bug turns out to be pretty stupid and easy to spot - if I had only thought to look at the right place. I leave the boost test stuff in because now its "free". I've been kidnapped into the boost community in spite of myself.
It's all good and interesting but would you prefer minimal testing component? You stuck with a single BOOST_CHECK tool and couldn't figure out why particular assertion fails. You could use debugger but using BOOST_CHEKK_EQUAL would give you much more change to figure it you quicker without one.
Contrast that the current situation. I look into boost test. Well reading the documents is a couple of hours. Then there is bjam and library building and linking. Right away I'm on to something else.
I could reinforce existence of inlined components that allow to skip library building. Also just reading getting started page should give you enough to start in your scenario above.
fyi - my current situation is programming a gameboy color to implement a hangglidng flight instrument. This thing is a bitch to program. I could sure use boost test here - any chance of a straight "C" version?
I doubt it. ;) Gennadiy