Beman Dawes <bdawes@acm.org> writes:
At 08:30 AM 2/12/2004, David Abrahams wrote:
Beman Dawes <bdawes@acm.org> writes:
Anyhow, I think your point about multiple reporting is a good one. The volume of tests is just too high. Fewer, more comprehensive, tests would be easier to monitor. Also fewer compilers. Do we really need to test every version of GCC and VC++ for the last four years?
Yes, IMO, if people want to support those compilers, we do need to test them.
It comes down to resources. I suppose if people really care about older compilers, they will be willing to contribute testing.
Yes. And as far as I can tell, they have been. meta-comm has been running the tests with vc6 and vc7, and Martin Wille (?) has been running the tests with nearly all versions of GCC ever produced ;^)
It would be easier to know if any particular tests was a resource problem if there was a bjam option to time the build and run aspects of the tests. The change Jeremy made recently to one or two of the graph tests noticeably sped testing, but it was only happenstance that I realized they were problems.
Yeah; it's doable but as usual it's a question of resources. When the amount of time we waste by having problems like this one becomes painful enough, though, I guess we'll all be willing to devote those resources ;-)
Human monitoring is just too error-prone. Why risk it? Why not have comprehensive tests with automated notifications when something breaks? It seems to me that less testing can only result in fewer things working, and coupled with human monitoring it's just going to make things worse, not better.
Great! Let's give it a try. Who has to do what to start?
Someone has to get BuildBot up and running. I'm too busy until at least 3/1. Rene said he might be able to try it earlier, but he only really has a sizeable chunk of time starting 3/1 as well. If someone else would like to do the community a great service, (s)he can be a pioneer: http://buildbot.sf.net -- Dave Abrahams Boost Consulting www.boost-consulting.com