Boost.Test is officially deprecated in the next release That's sort of too fast and reckless, I agree that there are issues in Boost.Test but I'd offer to delay with it at least until there is a good replacement in the library. The point is if it happens this way and Boost will have no a Test framework for next 5-10 releases until a replacement is implemented, the folks will completely migrate to other test frameworks and will never get back, so the replacement itself will become pointless. I'd be better to stay patient for some time and keep working on it.
In my opinion, Boost needs a good testing library. Whether the current Boost.Test qualifies as such or not is a valid question but it is better than not having any. While there is no viable replacement for Boost.Test, the library should be retained at least for sake of backward >compatibility. When the replacement appears we can declare a deprecation period to allow users (and Boost developers) to port their tests. IMHO. Absolutely agree.
============================== Never lose heart! Regards, Alexander Stoyan http://alexander-stoyan.blogspot.com -----Original Message----- From: boost-bounces@lists.boost.org [mailto:boost-bounces@lists.boost.org] On Behalf Of Dave Abrahams Sent: Monday, September 17, 2012 5:41 PM To: boost; Gennadiy Rozental Subject: [boost] What Should we do About Boost.Test? Hi All, I was just going through Boost.Test to try to figure out how to teach it, and while it looks to have substantial value, it is also in quite a mess. It contains loads of features that are exercised in the examples/ directory but neither included in any of the tests nor documented. There are facilities for command-line argument parsing! There are "decorators" that turn on/off features for test cases. There is support for mock objects! These are cool and sometimes necessary features, but who knew? The third tutorial page (http://www.boost.org/doc/libs/1_51_0/libs/test/doc/html/tutorials/new-year- resolution.html) has a glaring typo in the code examples: "BOOST_AUTO_EST_CASE". There's no reference manual at all. There are nearly-identical files in the examples/ directory called "est_example1.cpp" and "test_example1.cpp" (Did the "t" key on someone's keyboard break?) I could go on, but where would I stop? I don't know what to do about this. Because of the lack of redundancy (i.e. tests and documentation), it's hard to tell whether this library is correct or even to define what "correct" should mean. It seems like, as long as the code is incompletely / incorrectly documented and tested, it's just someone's personal coding project that we happen to keep shipping with Boost, and not really a library for general use. This situation reflects poorly on Boost as a whole and the fact that it centers around a _testing_ library, which is concerned with robustness... well, let's just say that the irony isn't lost on me. I don't mean this posting as an attack on Gennadiy in any way, but I think the situation is unacceptable and therefore am opening a discussion about what should happen. As a straw man, I'll make this suggestion: - Boost.Test is officially deprecated in the next release - Its documentation, such as it is, is removed from the release after that - Meanwhile, other tests in Boost that use this library are rewritten to use a different mechanism - The code is removed from Boost thereafter I am not at all attached to removing Boost.Test from Boost, but IMO rescuing it would require a significant new investment of time and energy from people who are committed to bringing the library up to par with the rest of what we do. (I seriously thought about volunteering for this myself, but realistically speaking, I don't have the time, and volunteering for something you can't actually do is worse than not volunteering at all.) Even if volunteers show up, I'd suggest proceeding with the plan above, subject to reversal at any time the work actually gets done. Thoughts? -- Dave Abrahams BoostPro Computing Software Development Training http://www.boostpro.com Clang/LLVM/EDG Compilers C++ Boost _______________________________________________ Unsubscribe & other changes: http://lists.boost.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/boost