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Beman Dawes | 29 Aug 18:17
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[filesystem][xpressive] Hotfix patches available for 1.36.0

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.

Thanks,

--Beman
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Michael Marcin | 29 Aug 19:11

Re: [filesystem][xpressive] Hotfix patches available for 1.36.0

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.
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Eric Niebler | 29 Aug 22:36
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Re: [filesystem][xpressive] Hotfix patches available for 1.36.0

Michael Marcin wrote:
> If the 
> fixes are not critical enough to justify making a point release than 
> they should wait until the next release.

So you're against hotfixes. <shrug> I would say, take the hotfix if you 
are experiencing the problem addressed by the hotfix. Otherwise, wait 
for the next release.

--

-- 
Eric Niebler
BoostPro Computing
http://www.boostpro.com
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Mat Marcus | 29 Aug 23:23

Re: [filesystem][xpressive] Hotfix patches available for 1.36.0

On Fri, Aug 29, 2008 at 1:36 PM, Eric Niebler <eric <at> boostpro.com> wrote:
> Michael Marcin wrote:
>>
>> If the fixes are not critical enough to justify making a point release
>> than they should wait until the next release.
>
> So you're against hotfixes. <shrug> I would say, take the hotfix if you are
> experiencing the problem addressed by the hotfix. Otherwise, wait for the
> next release.
>
> --
> Eric Niebler
> BoostPro Computing
> http://www.boostpro.com

For some of us the answer is not <shrug>. Are hotfixes really the way
forward? Not to pick on filesystem, threads or xpressive, but hotfixes
are a bit difficult to manage in a coporate environment. It's hard
enough to get boost accepted/updated without having to defend against
people who argue that it's too risky to use boost due to "inadequate
quality control" e.g. "boost 1.35.0 didn't work out of the box
(windows thread bugs, filesystem compilation errors, etc.), boost
1.36.0 doesn't work out of the box, and there are no dot-releases
planned". It really helps if there is a perception of stable, high
quality, official, numbered releases.

 - Mat
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Beman Dawes | 30 Aug 00:18
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Re: [filesystem][xpressive] Hotfix patches available for 1.36.0

Mat Marcus wrote:
> On Fri, Aug 29, 2008 at 1:36 PM, Eric Niebler <eric <at> boostpro.com> wrote:
>> Michael Marcin wrote:
>>> If the fixes are not critical enough to justify making a point release
>>> than they should wait until the next release.
>> So you're against hotfixes. <shrug> I would say, take the hotfix if you are
>> experiencing the problem addressed by the hotfix. Otherwise, wait for the
>> next release.
>>
>> --
>> Eric Niebler
>> BoostPro Computing
>> http://www.boostpro.com
> 
> For some of us the answer is not <shrug>. Are hotfixes really the way
> forward? Not to pick on filesystem, threads or xpressive, but hotfixes
> are a bit difficult to manage in a coporate environment. It's hard
> enough to get boost accepted/updated without having to defend against
> people who argue that it's too risky to use boost due to "inadequate
> quality control" e.g. "boost 1.35.0 didn't work out of the box
> (windows thread bugs, filesystem compilation errors, etc.), boost
> 1.36.0 doesn't work out of the box, and there are no dot-releases
> planned". It really helps if there is a perception of stable, high
> quality, official, numbered releases.

Sure, corporate environments often prefer to pretend software has no 
bugs, and thus rarely needs to be updated. I've got one customer who 
refuses to upgrade a ten+ year old C++ compiler because the vendor has 
come out with new releases every few years and management views that as 
a sign of great instability. Sigh.
(Continue reading)

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Adam Merz | 30 Aug 01:58
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Re: [filesystem][xpressive] Hotfix patches available for 1.36.0

Personally, I have no problems with hotfixes, but for those who prefer point
releases, how about this:

When a given version of Boost is at the end of its development lifecycle (i.e.,
when a new version of Boost is ready for release), take all the hotfixes for
that version and package them into a point release, then release the point
release and the new version at the same time. E.g., when Boost 1.37.0 is done,
create a 1.36.1 out of all the available 1.36.0 hotfixes.

This shouldn't add a significant resource burden, as the 1.36.1 package should
only need a single test run (as opposed to the daily tests the new version would
require) -- it's not being actively updated, should have no/minimal interface
changes from the base version, and the changeset(s) making up a given hotfix
have already received prior testing on trunk. To clarify, I'm advocating that
individual hotfixes do not receive any automated testing, other than on trunk,
as is currently done; only the point release resulting from all the hotfix
changesets would need testing.

The one "drawback" that I can think of is that Boost developers as a whole
(i.e., more than just Beman and Eric ;-) would need to track/categorize
changesets as hotfixes, so it could take a while to get enough momentum going to
make it realistic/useful.

Just my 2¢.

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Eric Niebler | 30 Aug 00:34
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Re: [filesystem][xpressive] Hotfix patches available for 1.36.0


Mat Marcus wrote:
> On Fri, Aug 29, 2008 at 1:36 PM, Eric Niebler <eric <at> boostpro.com> wrote:
>> Michael Marcin wrote:
>>> If the fixes are not critical enough to justify making a point release
>>> than they should wait until the next release.
>> So you're against hotfixes. <shrug> I would say, take the hotfix if you are
>> experiencing the problem addressed by the hotfix. Otherwise, wait for the
>> next release.
> 
> For some of us the answer is not <shrug>. 

That wasn't my answer. See above.

> Are hotfixes really the way
> forward? Not to pick on filesystem, threads or xpressive, but hotfixes
> are a bit difficult to manage in a coporate environment. It's hard
> enough to get boost accepted/updated without having to defend against
> people who argue that it's too risky to use boost due to "inadequate
> quality control" e.g. "boost 1.35.0 didn't work out of the box
> (windows thread bugs, filesystem compilation errors, etc.), boost
> 1.36.0 doesn't work out of the box

1.36.0 works out of the box. But I get your point.

> , and there are no dot-releases
> planned". It really helps if there is a perception of stable, high
> quality, official, numbered releases.

Understood. You want point releases. We don't have the resources right
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Vladimir Prus | 30 Aug 07:23
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Re: [filesystem][xpressive] Hotfix patches available for 1.36.0

Eric Niebler wrote:

> 
> Mat Marcus wrote:
>> On Fri, Aug 29, 2008 at 1:36 PM, Eric Niebler <eric <at> boostpro.com> wrote:
>>> Michael Marcin wrote:
>>>> If the fixes are not critical enough to justify making a point release
>>>> than they should wait until the next release.
>>> So you're against hotfixes. <shrug> I would say, take the hotfix if you are
>>> experiencing the problem addressed by the hotfix. Otherwise, wait for the
>>> next release.
>> 
>> For some of us the answer is not <shrug>.
> 
> That wasn't my answer. See above.
> 
>> Are hotfixes really the way
>> forward? Not to pick on filesystem, threads or xpressive, but hotfixes
>> are a bit difficult to manage in a coporate environment. It's hard
>> enough to get boost accepted/updated without having to defend against
>> people who argue that it's too risky to use boost due to "inadequate
>> quality control" e.g. "boost 1.35.0 didn't work out of the box
>> (windows thread bugs, filesystem compilation errors, etc.), boost
>> 1.36.0 doesn't work out of the box
> 
> 1.36.0 works out of the box. But I get your point.
> 
>> , and there are no dot-releases
>> planned". It really helps if there is a perception of stable, high
>> quality, official, numbered releases.
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Eric Niebler | 30 Aug 18:57
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Re: [filesystem][xpressive] Hotfix patches available for 1.36.0

Vladimir Prus wrote:
> Eric Niebler wrote:
<snip>
>> In the mean time, corporate users of Boost have a few options: (1)
>> ignore hotfixes, (2) pay for support, (3) consider donating the testing
>> resources we would need to produce point releases.
> 
> As I've already said, those "hotfixes" presently appear to be *totally untested*.

They are tested in trunk, which hasn't yet diverged significantly from 
the 1.36 release.

> I'd be happy to be proved wrong -- just point me at a tables of test results
> for 1.36.0 + hotfixes and I'll shut up. 

You're right, no such testing is done officially. It is the 
responsibility of each developer to test their hotfix with the release 
locally before posting it, but that is not enforced.

> But if hotfixes are indeed untested,
> then I don't understand why creating 1.36.1, which is basically 1.36.0 +
> hotfixes in a single archive, would require *any testing resources at all*.
> 
> Can you clarify?

You raise a fair point. My feeling is we couldn't in good faith issue an 
official point release without testing it. Hotfixes aren't (yet) 
official Boost releases and so meet a different criteria. That's a weak 
justification, but considering that we have limited resources, it seems 
like a good-faith effort to quickly get fixes into hands of users that
(Continue reading)

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Vladimir Prus | 31 Aug 07:42
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Re: [filesystem][xpressive] Hotfix patches available for 1.36.0

Eric Niebler wrote:

>> But if hotfixes are indeed untested,
>> then I don't understand why creating 1.36.1, which is basically 1.36.0 +
>> hotfixes in a single archive, would require *any testing resources at all*.
>> 
>> Can you clarify?
> 
> You raise a fair point. My feeling is we couldn't in good faith issue an
> official point release without testing it. Hotfixes aren't (yet)
> official Boost releases and so meet a different criteria. That's a weak
> justification, but considering that we have limited resources, it seems
> like a good-faith effort to quickly get fixes into hands of users that
> need them.
> 
> Perhaps we need a bold disclaimer stating that hotfixes are not official
> Boost releases and that buyer beware.

Why we can call hotfixes "unofficial" and cannot call an archive file unofficial?
We can even give it a name such as 1.36.unofficial-hotfixes-1 to make it absolutely
clear. While I can understand why we cannot do regular testing on hotfix release
due to resource constraints, why making hotfixes as hard to get as possible?

Put yourself in a position of a user -- you have "official" 1.36.0 which is known
to have serious issues, and you have "unofficial" hotfixes -- how does one
decide which one to use? If we believe that 1.36.0+hotfixes is actually better
than 1.36.0, then it's official position, and should be expressed explicitly.
If we truly believe that 1.36.0+hotfixes is high-risk combination, then should
we actually provide hotfixes?
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Darryl Green | 31 Aug 04:55
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Re: [filesystem][xpressive] Hotfix patches available for 1.36.0

On Fri, 2008-08-29 at 15:34 -0700, Eric Niebler wrote:
> Understood. You want point releases. We don't have the resources right 
> now. We are busy flushing the bugs out of a new release process that 
> should give us quarterly releases. This is in response to feedback such 
> as yours. Beman has said on this list that the issue of point releases 
> will be reconsidered once we are meeting our quarterly release schedule. 
> In the mean time, corporate users of Boost have a few options: (1) 
> ignore hotfixes, (2) pay for support, (3) consider donating the testing 
> resources we would need to produce point releases.
> 

I thnk the new branching policy is fine as far as it goes, and I think
the long lived (cross release) release branch makes perfect sense. The
proposed patching process otoh makes no sense to me. The hotfix process
as described seems to eschew use of subversion and the boost testing
system in favour of a completely manual process of creating,releasing,
testing and applying the patches. The patches if I understand correctly
aren't even beased against the release to which they are supposed to
apply. This seems to create work for everybody while reducing quality.

What is wrong with an approach where a branch is made from the release
branch at the time of release (or later, from the tag). I'll call this
branch "maintenance" in the following examples. Note that this branch
need not be made if teh release is "perfect". Also note that this is
eassentially a whole of boost equivalent to a per-lib approach Robert
Ramey suggested earlier:

Boost developer wishes to make a change to fix a "production issue" -
possibly by applying a user supplied patch against the release version.
The change is made directly on the developers local copy of the
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David Abrahams | 30 Aug 19:51
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Re: [Boost-users] [filesystem][xpressive] Hotfix patches available for 1.36.0


on Fri Aug 29 2008, "Mat Marcus" <mat-lists-AT-emarcus.org> wrote:

> For some of us the answer is not <shrug>. Are hotfixes really the way
> forward? Not to pick on filesystem, threads or xpressive, but hotfixes
> are a bit difficult to manage in a coporate environment. It's hard
> enough to get boost accepted/updated without having to defend against
> people who argue that it's too risky to use boost due to "inadequate
> quality control" e.g. "boost 1.35.0 didn't work out of the box
> (windows thread bugs, filesystem compilation errors, etc.), boost
> 1.36.0 doesn't work out of the box, and there are no dot-releases
> planned". It really helps if there is a perception of stable, high
> quality, official, numbered releases.

Hi Mat,

With apologies for the sales message: my company's Enterprise Support
program offers the closest possible equivalent of point releases for
Boost.  We might be able to help you.

--

-- 
Dave Abrahams
BoostPro Computing
http://www.boostpro.com
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Mat Marcus | 30 Aug 23:32

Re: [Boost-users] [filesystem][xpressive] Hotfix patches available for 1.36.0

On Sat, Aug 30, 2008 at 10:51 AM, David Abrahams <dave <at> boostpro.com> wrote:

> With apologies for the sales message: my company's Enterprise Support
> program offers the closest possible equivalent of point releases for
> Boost.  We might be able to help you.

Thanks for the note, Dave. I'm afraid that I didn't make my point very
clearly. I am not looking for support for boost, nor am I in
particularly in favor of dot-releases, except when necessary. I'm
concerned about the boost "brand" and the perceived quality of the
officially released versions.  What gives me trouble is when I lobby
for groups to upgrade to 1.35.0 and they pushback saying that no one
should upgrade since there's a "serious runtime bug in windows
threads" or "filesystem doesn't even compile". If such claims are
accurate then I would have expect some action to be taken (beyond
"wait for the next release", or "seek out the appropriate experimental
hotfix"). One approach would be to produce a dot release. No doubt
there are other approaches.

Reliability, especially for mature core components, trumps new
features when it comes to proliferating boost in our environment. My
posts can be viewed as one data point that the perception of
world-class reliability has weakened a bit in 1.35.0. I haven't worked
with 1.36.0 long enough to know whether this was a one-time fluke.

 - Mat
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David Abrahams | 31 Aug 02:32
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Re: [Boost-users] [filesystem][xpressive] Hotfix patches available for 1.36.0


on Sat Aug 30 2008, "Mat Marcus" <mat-lists-AT-emarcus.org> wrote:

> On Sat, Aug 30, 2008 at 10:51 AM, David Abrahams <dave <at> boostpro.com> wrote:
>
>> With apologies for the sales message: my company's Enterprise Support
>> program offers the closest possible equivalent of point releases for
>> Boost.  We might be able to help you.

Oops!  I was pretty sure I didn't send that to the list, but I
unfortunately left the list in the Cc: field.  My apologies to all.

> Thanks for the note, Dave. I'm afraid that I didn't make my point very
> clearly. I am not looking for support for boost, nor am I in
> particularly in favor of dot-releases, except when necessary. I'm
> concerned about the boost "brand" and the perceived quality of the
> officially released versions.  What gives me trouble is when I lobby
> for groups to upgrade to 1.35.0 and they pushback saying that no one
> should upgrade since there's a "serious runtime bug in windows
> threads" or "filesystem doesn't even compile". If such claims are
> accurate then I would have expect some action to be taken (beyond
> "wait for the next release", or "seek out the appropriate experimental
> hotfix").  One approach would be to produce a dot release. No doubt
> there are other approaches.

I'd be interested to hear of them.

Anyway, thanks for saying all that explicitly; that pretty much echoes
my discomfort with our current direction.
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Patrick Loney | 2 Sep 10:37

Re: [filesystem][xpressive] Hotfix patches availablefor 1.36.0


Michael Marcin wrote:
>> If the 
>> fixes are not critical enough to justify making a point release than 
>> they should wait until the next release.

> So you're against hotfixes. <shrug> I would say, take the hotfix if
you 
> are experiencing the problem addressed by the hotfix. Otherwise, wait 
> for the next release.

So long as the effort used to release the hotfixes doesn't take away
from the effort used for proper releases. I don't spend the time with
boost required to hunt around to make sure I have the right fixes (I use
boost because it is convenient); I'd really like to see an x.xx.1
release for all boost versions, even if there was only a single bug is
some unused corner of the library.

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Beman Dawes | 30 Aug 00:01
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Re: [filesystem][xpressive] Hotfix patches available for 1.36.0

Michael Marcin wrote:
> 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?

As far as Boost.Filesystem goes, it is perfectly usable. The fixes are 
primarily concerned with deprecated names. They only would be considered 
required if so much existing user code failed to compile that it is 
easier to apply the fixes than update the existing user code.

> 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.

In that sort of environment it is often best to stick with a particular 
version of Boost and other libraries until you reach a point in internal 
development cycles that it is convenient to change over to the newest 
versions of the libraries.

> 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
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raindog | 30 Aug 06:46

Re: [filesystem][xpressive] Hotfix patches availablefor 1.36.0

My 2 cents:

1. Point releases should never break interfaces ever, they should be for those organizations who need
minor bugs fixed but don't have the spare cycles to rework their code due to interface changes. Think of all
the test cases, etc that might need rewritten and even the test case code themselves might depend on the
same library. Interface changes will reduce the number parties able to even consider taking the release.

2. Organizations like those with the 10 year old tool chains are not going to consume any releases after
their already accepted dependancies regardless, due to whatever risks they have whether contrived or not.

3. Major releases will generally be comsumed by organixations starting new projects or major revisions of
existing projects because this is when they can afford the risks and at the same time will have spare cycles.

4. Developers or organizations agile enough to take point releases or patches will have no problem using a
vcs system to fetch those changes or to apply patches, they should be experts at this. They will probably
also be taking all major releases too.

5. My opinion is that for any shop with multiple layers of dependancies, as described below, they should
choose a version of the dependancy and upgrade across the site only with major revisions if deemed
necessary. For general software development, they will be very few compelling reasons that will warrant
a library upgrade. The last thing one would desire is to bore developers with tasks they generally dislike
( library upgrades being one of those ).

Josh phillips
Virus analyst
Microsoft

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

-----Original Message-----
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Jurko Gospodnetić | 30 Aug 10:59

Re: [filesystem][xpressive] Hotfix patches availablefor 1.36.0

   Hi raindog <at> macrohmasheen.com

> My 2 cents:

   Argh... please do not top-post... and if you do then at least do not 
make your part of the mail long AND not place any quoting characters in 
front of lines belonging to the original post you are replying to. 
Reading that mail was a very unpleasant experience.

   Many thanks.

   Best regards,
     Jurko Gospodnetić

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Johan Råde | 30 Aug 12:04
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Re: [filesystem][xpressive] Hotfix patches availablefor 1.36.0

I have just downloaded and applied one of the patches.
I think the patches are very useful and convenient.

(I work for a tiny software company, three full-time employees,
one developer (me) and two sales people.)

--Johan
'
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Eric Niebler | 29 Aug 22:38
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Re: [filesystem][xpressive] Hotfix patches available for 1.36.0

Michael Marcin wrote:
> If the 
> fixes are not critical enough to justify making a point release than 
> they should wait until the next release.

So you're against hotfixes. <shrug> I would say, take the hotfix if you
are experiencing the problem addressed by the hotfix. Otherwise, wait
for the next release.

--

-- 
Eric Niebler
BoostPro Computing
http://www.boostpro.com

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raindog | 31 Aug 08:11

Re: [filesystem][xpressive] Hotfix patchesavailablefor 1.36.0

I'm sorry my cell phone does not add < to every line of prior emails, that your mail client is too crappy to
support a threaded view, and your brain too weak to read the giant email header immediately following my response.

------Original Message------
From: Jurko Gospodnetić
Sender: boost-users-bounces <at> lists.boost.org
To: boost-users <at> lists.boost.org
Cc: boost <at> lists.boost.org
ReplyTo: boost-users <at> lists.boost.org
Sent: Aug 30, 2008 1:59 AM
Subject: Re: [Boost-users] [filesystem][xpressive] Hotfix patchesavailablefor 1.36.0

   Hi raindog <at> macrohmasheen.com

> My 2 cents:

   Argh... please do not top-post... and if you do then at least do not 
make your part of the mail long AND not place any quoting characters in 
front of lines belonging to the original post you are replying to. 
Reading that mail was a very unpleasant experience.

   Many thanks.

   Best regards,
     Jurko Gospodnetić

_______________________________________________
Boost-users mailing list
Boost-users <at> lists.boost.org
http://lists.boost.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/boost-users
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