----- Original Message ----- From: "Peter Dimov" <pdimov@pdimov.com> To: <boost@lists.boost.org> Sent: Wednesday, July 16, 2008 10:17 AM Subject: Re: [boost] [1.36.0] Libraries with unmerged changes?
David Abrahams:
That was one of the kinds of cases I had in mind when wondering if it was a good idea to rely on dependent libraries' tests to discover problems in a library.
Having dependent libraries act as regression tests is a good thing. It increases the test coverage and helps us uncover regressions before our users.
Hi, You are right, when you increase the test coverage you reduce the risck of errors for new users, but this do not protect the current user from incompatible evolutions. I would like to know, as a user, if all the test done by developpers themselfs or by the testers on the release branch help to identify possible regressions on the user code, and if these regressions will be explicitly described on the release contents. One way to detect some incompatible evolutions could be to run the tests from the preceding release (1.35) with the new release headers and sources (1.36). I don't know SVN enough to know if such a view (snapshot?) is easy to create. If all the test and examples where in a separate directory this will be surely easier to do. The cost of making these test work without modifying at all the new release, will give us an idea of the cost the users will have on their migrations. Vicente