Re: [boost] Suggested policy for dropping C++03 support in Boost libraries

On November 7, 2019 5:18:28 PM EST, Stefan Seefeld via Boost wrote:

On 2019-11-07 4:42 p.m., Rob Stewart via Boost wrote:

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On November 7, 2019 3:10:12 PM EST, Peter Dimov via Boost

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We need a policy on phasing out C++03 support in Boost.

I thought library authors already were at liberty to require C++11 for their project. Are you suggesting that at this point in time all Boost libraries are supposed to be compatible with C++03 ?

Peter is only documenting how to go about making the transition, but my expectation is that it will encourage authors and maintainers to make the transition.

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Consider the alternate path of bumping the major version. There are a lot of libraries that will have to drop 03 simultaneously, so that would be signified clearly by a move to Boost v2.

There may be some tooling that assumes v1, but really, isn't it time to use the major version number?

I never understood our versioning (numbering) scheme. Given that we don't have any metric to measure the degree of (in-)compatibility between two distinct Boost releases, I always thought a simple monotonically increasing number would be the simplest. Let's just get rid of the "1." as a meaningless prefix, rather than invent some semantics around an illusion.

Some tools probably expected a major and minor version number. (Even if that was the case, it may no longer be so.) I suppose a v2 of Boost is illusory, so there's something to your idea. -- Rob (Sent from my portable computation device.)