Re: [boost] boost.test regression or behavior change (was Re: Boost.lockfree)

On 06-Oct-15 12:31 PM, M.A. van den Berg wrote:

On 6 Oct 2015, at 11:17, Andrey Semashev wrote:

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On Tue, Oct 6, 2015 at 11:56 AM, M.A. van den Berg wrote:

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3) Why make users change their code to use 'Test2' instead of 'Test', and then to 'Test3' in the future?

That allows users to opt in to the changes.

This is a clear example of the drawbacks of a monolithic boost distribution.

What, exactly, and how it it related to monolithic structure? Opting in for such breaking changes is the only sensible way, IMHO.

The way I see it, it that Test2, Test3 is poor-mans versioning effect by creating new libraries with version numbers added in the name, .. and then shipping all three of them in a boost release? This solution gives very limited version dependency capabilities.

When boost moved to git there was an effort to reduce dependencies between libraries. One of wish -by some- was to have a future of boost where individual libraries and their version tagged dependencies would all be separate downloadable. This is not the current situation, of even a goal that’s on the agenda, but I wish it was. It would solve a lot of scalability issues IMO.

I think that's a little bit too abstract. If there are dozens of libraries that semantically depend on Boost.Test, it does not matter in practice whether it's monolithic distribution or a fully modular one put together on demand by supernatural powers - if end users actively use Boost libraries with C++03 and want to run tests, they need Boost.Test.C++03. If there were 2 or 3 niche libraries with such dependency, the situation would be different, but as it is now, this is painful breaking change regardless of distribution mechanics. - Volodya