On Fri, Nov 20, 2009 at 6:33 AM, Stewart, Robert <Robert.Stewart@sig.com> wrote:
Emil Dotchevski wrote:
On Thu, Nov 19, 2009 at 5:24 AM, Stewart, Robert <Robert.Stewart@sig.com> wrote:
Emil Dotchevski wrote:
I propose to replace all of the existing warnings guidelines in the Wiki with the following: "No warnings should be emitted by Boost code. Use your best judgment to either fix or suppress the warning."
I like the simplicity of this statement of purpose, but there's value in educating developers on how to judge whether to fix or suppress a warning and in the information on how to deal with specific warnings and compiler vagaries.
If I understand correctly, you are concerned with the possibility of developers suppressing warnings as opposed to "fixing them properly."
My wording, which is indeed intended to be complete, specifically seeks to avoid such differentiation. Rather than arguing what is right and what is wrong, we should consider the simple fact that if a Boost developer suppresses a warning in a particular library, there are no reasonable grounds to require the warning to be enabled and the code "fixed".
You seem to make two assumptions: warnings are nuisances that should be ignored and all Boost authors and maintainers have sufficient knowledge to judge whether a warning should be ignored (suppressed).
I don't think I made any of these assumptions. My assumptions are: 1) Boost developers have enough knowledge of C++ programming to understand what a warning says. 2) Boost developers, knowing what the warning says, and having designed the code in question, are best equipped to decide what action should be taken. Obviously, if a warning indicates a bug, the *bug* has to be fixed, but that's just common sense, we don't need a policy for this case. Emil Dotchevski Reverge Studios, Inc. http://www.revergestudios.com/reblog/index.php?n=ReCode