David Abrahams wrote: Brian Allison [1]<brian@dtmr.com> writes: David Abrahams wrote: "Reece Dunn" [1][2]<msclrhd@hotmail.com> writes: David Abrahams wrote: Sounds good, but I'd like to know, as a practical matter, what the difference between these two is. Less pressure on developers to support the 2nd category? The first would mean that Boost guarantees support for the specified compiler/version What does that mean? Every developer is obligated to make his library work on that compiler? That would be unprecedented (though not out of the question). If only highly conformant compilers were on the list of 'guaranteed' compilers, then the obligation could be restated that the developers write conformant code and that the compilers be at least X conformant. Then the developers can concentrate not on catering to a broken compiler, and those who insist on using such compilers can bear the brunt of the brokenness - instead of the developers who are donating their time and efforts to help others through their work. Just one lurker's opinion - hopefully one for illumination and not inflamation. But how would it change anything? We don't "guarantee" anything today, and I'm pretty sure we won't guarantee anything a year from now either. I wasn't suggesting any guarantees be put forth; that's why I used quotes around 'guaranteed'. Perhaps it would have been less imprecise if I had said: If only highly conformant compilers were in the 1st category - presuming such a category had sufficient usefulness to the developers to warrant the concept of categorization - then the users of Boost could be less likely to miss the fact that the only obligation the developers assigned to themselves was attempting to write compliant code which a conforming compiler would therefore accept. Then the developers could concentrate on the expressing the thoughts into code instead of concerning themselves to any great degree with non-conformant platforms. Which would then make it more obvious to the non-developers that the burden of non-conformant compilers is intrinsically on the shoulders of those who choose the non-conformant compilers. Sorry if that's too verbose, I'm under significant workload and didn't take much time on the explanation. Also, I didn't think that the most concise message was the empty set - aplogies if I was mistaken. Brian References 1. mailto:brian@dtmr.com 2. mailto:msclrhd@hotmail.com