________________________________________ From: Boost [boost-bounces@lists.boost.org] on behalf of Dave Gomboc [dave_gomboc@acm.org] Sent: 27 December 2014 19:04 To: Boost Mailing List Subject: Re: [boost] [test] boost.test owner unresponsive to persistent problems for multiple years I get the digests, so I'm quoting from a number of different emails on this thread in this message.

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Both contain a fix for this. On stack overflow the proposed fix is literally a single line change.

The issue is addressed in devel branch with somewhat better fix long long time ago.

It is important that tickets be updated to reflect such information.

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If there are issues fixed in develop branch, it would help a lot to inform users by updating the tickets accordingly.

Here is a blanket update message: at this point all the issues with Boost.Test are fixed on devel branch ;).

This doesn't help people who filed a ticket (perhaps years ago) but don't happen to catch this email.

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This has been a problem for about 5 years and these simple fixes don't make it into the library.

This is going to be released as part of the effort of merging devel into master. Now, when this happens depends only on docs upgrade.

It seems that in addition to documentation upgrades/improvements there is at least also the issue of identifying all Boost.Test-related tickets that are currently outstanding, verifying that the issue raised within them is indeed resolved within the development branch (rather than just assuming this is true), and updating the ticket to reflect that the problem has been resolved in the development branch (though it should not be closed yet until a new Boost release comes out with the fix in place).

All in all "devel to master upgrade" is one target I really want to reach and is what I plan to concentrate my effort on. You are still welcome to help with this if you are up to it.

Excellent! If it has really been five years (or even if it has been only one full year) since this last happened, then may I suggest that this should be your sole target for Boost.Test until this task is accomplished, that your target should be prior to the next major release of Boost, and that obtaining assistance be an important part of your plan to accomplishing this task within this timeframe? To that end, could you please provide for the Boost community a detailed outline of exactly what remains to be done in order for the merge of the latest Boost.Test to master to be completed? Please be clear about exactly what others can help with, and in the cases where you think nobody else can help you, why that is so. Please do so here on the mailing list rather than ask people to contact you privately about it, so that more people will know what remains to be done and may be willing to lend a hand so it can get done.

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1. What are the reason(s) why-list_content is not (yet) added to the release? Is there any schedule for its release?

I need to document all these new features to release new Boost.Test

Can you provide a list of these new features alphabetically by name with a one-sentence description? Boosters can sign up for writing documentation paragraphs, can contribute them here, and you can collect and use them.

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Yes. I fully agree with this statement. I hope to get back to this list with more concrete schedule soon. And if you are interested to push this even sooner - please feel free to help.

That's great news. I know a vast amount of work has gone into develop and we'll all benefit when it finally gets merged into master. Yes, I'm happy to support this effort as best I can. Feel free to contact me off-list.

Rather than contact people off-list, I urge you to get all of the outstanding work into the open and use this mailing list for co-ordination not only so that people can contribute without overlapping their effort needlessly, but so that the current status is visible to all of us. That last point is rather important: I know of projects that have chosen alternative testing frameworks simply because of the lack of visibility re: Boost.Test.

Thanks for working hard to move this forward. Boost.Test has always been a critical library and as a result somewhat of a thankless task to maintain given the constant risk of breakage across Boost as a whole. Thanks for persevering.

I absolutely concur with this. Your efforts are appreciated, Gennady! You've been shouldering the entire burden for too long. I think that by publicly coordinating and leading the remaining effort to get the latest Boost.Test onto master, you'll be able to achieve this goal more quickly. Dave _______________________________________________ Unsubscribe & other changes: http://lists.boost.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/boost My apologies, Microsoft Outlook assumes top editing, so I am adding this at the end. I want to offer to help. I could help with the documentation mentioned above. I also want to point out that boost test is top of the list for non conforming behaviour on the boost inspection list and I am sure that people could also help sort that out. The errors include: unnamed namespace lack of licence and/or copyright file doesn't end with new line. I did a clean up of this sort when I took the role of a maintainer for Boost Phoenix, so would be happy to help. I would need instructing how to feed back in changes e.g. to put in the licence. Best wishes John

Dave Gomboc writes:

It seems that in addition to documentation upgrades/improvements there is at least also the issue of identifying all Boost.Test-related tickets that are currently outstanding, verifying that the issue raised within them is indeed resolved within the development branch (rather than just assuming this is true), and updating the ticket to reflect that the problem has been resolved in the development branch (though it should not be closed yet until a new Boost release comes out with the fix in place).

Yes - you are correct.

To that end, could you please provide for the Boost community a detailed outline of exactly what remains to be done in order for the merge of the latest Boost.Test to master to be completed?

The biggest hurdle is new documentation. Once it is done all the other tasks will look much smaller. This includes cleaning up trac and maybe doing some minor fixes to address the issues there. The next step... Well I think we have two options: either I'll post new docs here for short review by interested parties or we can go though some form of minor review process if community believes this is necessary. After that we can merge. I expect backward compatibility issues to be minor if any. We'll need to get to the clean build state on all platforms and we are good to go ;0)

Can you provide a list of these new features alphabetically by name with a one-sentence description? Boosters can sign up for writing documentation paragraphs, can contribute them here, and you can collect and use them.

Whomever is interested to help with docs please ping me directly.

Rather than contact people off-list, I urge you to get all of the outstanding work into the open and use this mailing list for co-ordination not only so that people can contribute without overlapping their effort needlessly, but so that the current status is visible to all of us.

I am not sure why the nitty gritty details of development needs to be discussed with the mailing list. I am not hiding anything -it's just not very convenient IMO. One other point: most of my request for help (with quick book and doxygen support) on docs mailing list were left unanswered anyway.

I absolutely concur with this. Your efforts are appreciated, Gennady! You've been shouldering the entire burden for too long. I think that by publicly coordinating and leading the remaining effort to get the latest Boost.Test onto master, you'll be able to achieve this goal more quickly.

What left in docs: * general reformating of existing pages and separation to "user's guide" and "advanced usage scenarios" (I am working on this) * BOOST_TEST tool, including figuring out what to do with old testing tools description and reference * data driven test cases (Raffi works on this) * decorators support (Andrzej volunteered to help with this) * run by name/label description. Including multitude of new syntax options * figure out doxigen issues * figure out new format for examples * few minor issues with Boost.Logos * investigate Boost.pp style left side menu (optional) * interaction testing (optional) * production use of Boost.Test (optional) * anything else missing from above (hopefully nothing big) Any takers? Gennadiy