From: Michael Marcin (mike.marcin_at_[hidden])
Date: 2008-08-29 13:11:05
Beman Dawes wrote:
> Hotfix patches are available to fix Boost.Filesystem and Boost.Xpressive
> [1.36.0] problems. See
> https://svn.boost.org/trac/boost/wiki/ReleasePractices/HotFixes
>
> Providing hotfix patches is something new and experimental for Boost.
> Please let us know if you find the patches useful or have other comments.
>
Are these libraries usable without these hotfixes or should they be
considered required?
At my company we use Boost directly and use libraries that depend on
Boost. We push those developers to upgrade their libraries when a new
version of Boost is released and we realize that it is a burden on them
and us to make the switch to the new versions.
Generally this means there is a lag between release and adoption as we
cannot move forward with a new version of Boost until all the third
party libraries that we interface with upgrade their libraries to the
new version of Boost.
In my opinion this makes hotfixes worse than useless for us. We might
not be able to upgrade to Boost+libraries that use Boost. For instance
if library A upgrades to 1.36 plain and library B upgrades to 1.36 plus
all or some of the hotfixes. If this compatibility problem occurs and
the libraries also provide critical fixes to their own library then I
believe we are stuck and must either drop the library, drop boost, or
wait for everything to resynchronize.
I may be overreacting but this seems very dangerous to me.
If there are critical fixes I'd much rather have a point release which
we can easily identify to the third party library providers. If the
fixes are not critical enough to justify making a point release than
they should wait until the next release.
Thanks,
Michael Marcin