Coordinating Boost Releases with compiler releases
In the thread "MSVC 2019 and 1.70 beta", there has been a discussion about what to do about support for MSVC 2019, which is due to be released right about the same time that Boost 1.70. One person suggested that we delay the boost release until after the MSVC release (I think the suggestion was "May"). This general question has been discussed before (several times), since tools get released fairly often - and so does Boost. In general, I am not in favor of delaying boost releases in order to add support for 'about to be released' development tools. There are two main reasons for this: * There's always another compiler / tool about to be released. Clang 8 is imminent - currently at RC5. GCC 9.1 is scheduled to be released in early May. * Boost releases happen every four months. August is not really that far off. People who want support for tool XXXX can use "the trunk", getting it either from git or from bintray. [ Everyone knows about the tarballs at bintray, right? https://dl.bintray.com/boostorg/master/ ] Also, if we were to delay the boost release until May, then what would happen to the August release? The release process for 1.71.0 is scheduled to start at the end of June. -- Marshall
On 3/14/19 5:53 PM, Marshall Clow via Boost wrote:
In the thread "MSVC 2019 and 1.70 beta", there has been a discussion about what to do about support for MSVC 2019, which is due to be released right about the same time that Boost 1.70. One person suggested that we delay the boost release until after the MSVC release (I think the suggestion was "May").
This general question has been discussed before (several times), since tools get released fairly often - and so does Boost.
In general, I am not in favor of delaying boost releases in order to add support for 'about to be released' development tools. There are two main reasons for this:
* There's always another compiler / tool about to be released. Clang 8 is imminent - currently at RC5. GCC 9.1 is scheduled to be released in early May.
* Boost releases happen every four months. August is not really that far off. People who want support for tool XXXX can use "the trunk", getting it either from git or from bintray. [ Everyone knows about the tarballs at bintray, right? https://dl.bintray.com/boostorg/master/ ]
Also, if we were to delay the boost release until May, then what would happen to the August release? The release process for 1.71.0 is scheduled to start at the end of June.
I agree with you, compiler (or other software) releases are not the reason to shift Boost releases. I can add a few reasons to those you have listed: * If the new compiler is not immediately compatibe with the current Boost, there needs to be a potentially significant lag for Boost libraries to be updated. Which might be equivalent lagging one Boost release with out current schedule. If the compiler doesn't break Boost then the problem is non-existent in the first place. * There may also be downstream Boost users who depend on the current schedule.
Andrey Semashev wrote:
On 3/14/19 5:53 PM, Marshall Clow via Boost wrote:
In the thread "MSVC 2019 and 1.70 beta", there has been a discussion about what to do about support for MSVC 2019, which is due to be released right about the same time that Boost 1.70. One person suggested that we delay the boost release until after the MSVC release (I think the suggestion was "May").
...
I agree with you, compiler (or other software) releases are not the reason to shift Boost releases.
Please don't redirect the discussion into irrelevancy. There is no need to delay Boost 17.0 (Apr 10) until after VS 2019 (Apr 2), because in this universe time flows forwards, not backwards. And "May" was a flippant reference to Theresa May, not the month of May. The subject under discussion is whether we should release, in 1.70, the Boost.Build changes that enable VS 2019 (currently in develop but not in master), and if so, how.
On Thu, 14 Mar 2019 at 17:19, Peter Dimov via Boost <boost@lists.boost.org> wrote:
And "May" was a flippant reference to Theresa May, not the month of May.
Flippant or not, in the old world it keeps us busy [an event comparable to the state of California declaring independence], like that bloody wall keeps the Americans busy. The subject under discussion is whether we should release, in 1.70, the
Boost.Build changes that enable VS 2019 (currently in develop but not in master), and if so, how.
That's it! degski -- *"Big boys don't cry" - **Eric Stewart, Graham Gouldman*
On 3/14/19 6:19 PM, Peter Dimov via Boost wrote:
Andrey Semashev wrote:
On 3/14/19 5:53 PM, Marshall Clow via Boost wrote:
In the thread "MSVC 2019 and 1.70 beta", there has been a discussion about what to do about support for MSVC 2019, which is due to be > released right about the same time that Boost 1.70. One person > suggested that we delay the boost release until after the MSVC release (I think the suggestion was "May").
...
I agree with you, compiler (or other software) releases are not the reason to shift Boost releases.
Please don't redirect the discussion into irrelevancy. There is no need to delay Boost 17.0 (Apr 10) until after VS 2019 (Apr 2), because in this universe time flows forwards, not backwards. And "May" was a flippant reference to Theresa May, not the month of May.
I didn't follow the original discussion, but the OP of this thread certainly suggested to delay the Boost release, unless I'm misreading something. I was responding to that suggestion.
The subject under discussion is whether we should release, in 1.70, the Boost.Build changes that enable VS 2019 (currently in develop but not in master), and if so, how.
I'm not opposed to merging those changes to master before the release, provided that they are tested in develop (presumably, with a pre-release version of VS 2019) and don't break anything.
On Thu, 14 Mar 2019 at 17:29, Andrey Semashev via Boost < boost@lists.boost.org> wrote:
I didn't follow the original discussion, but the OP of this thread certainly suggested to delay the Boost release, unless I'm misreading something.
I did, not the OP. In an earlier post Peter mentioned the 3rd (of April) [as a cut-off date], now (as per a later post) it seems to be the 10th, like Peter said, more than enough time it seems (and time doesn't even have to flow backwards).
I'm not opposed to merging those changes to master before the release, provided that they are tested in develop (presumably, with a pre-release version of VS 2019) and don't break anything.
Yes. degski -- *"Big boys don't cry" - **Eric Stewart, Graham Gouldman*
On Thu, Mar 14, 2019 at 9:53 AM Marshall Clow via Boost < boost@lists.boost.org> wrote:
In the thread "MSVC 2019 and 1.70 beta", there has been a discussion about what to do about support for MSVC 2019, which is due to be released right about the same time that Boost 1.70. One person suggested that we delay the boost release until after the MSVC release (I think the suggestion was "May").
This general question has been discussed before (several times), since tools get released fairly often - and so does Boost.
In general, I am not in favor of delaying boost releases in order to add support for 'about to be released' development tools. There are two main reasons for this:
* There's always another compiler / tool about to be released. Clang 8 is imminent - currently at RC5. GCC 9.1 is scheduled to be released in early May.
* Boost releases happen every four months. August is not really that far off. People who want support for tool XXXX can use "the trunk", getting it either from git or from bintray. [ Everyone knows about the tarballs at bintray, right? https://dl.bintray.com/boostorg/master/ ]
Also, if we were to delay the boost release until May, then what would happen to the August release? The release process for 1.71.0 is scheduled to start at the end of June.
-- Marshall
I don't believe that we should hold up the build to wait for VS2019 to ship. However, I do believe that we should merge in (existing) support to enable VS2019 before the release. Clang/GCC are different, because they don't require any changes to the codebase to enable new versions. Clang 8 is already building in the regression test matrix against both master and develop. VS2019 is building in the regression test matrix against develop. I have a job that is attempting to build it against master, but it fails so early in the process that it doesn't upload anything, and we don't see an all yellow column. The risk (minor?) here is that merging support to master will cause failures (that aren't in develop?). When users run and see that VS2019 is building, they will assume full support (i.e. that authors have had a chance to checkout their library), which it won't have. Lets merge to master and *not* list this as a supported compiler. Tom
participants (5)
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Andrey Semashev -
degski -
Marshall Clow -
Peter Dimov -
Tom Kent