Re: [boost] Coding Guidelines Checked In

From: Beman Dawes (bdawes_at_[hidden])
Date: 2001-07-01 14:23:47

At 11:41 AM 7/1/2001, David Abrahams wrote:
 >You can now check out "lib_guide.htm" and "coding_guidelines.html" on the
 >"coding_guidelines" branch in CVS. I have removed coding_guidelines.html
 >from the files area, and don't plan to update it there.
 >
 >I'm very dissatisfied with the face presented by lib_guide.htm now. It
 >presents a set of "guidelines" also, which I think is confusing. If we 
put
 >the new guidelines in more/index.htm it will only get worse. Perhaps we
 >should label the lib_guide items "requirements", or perhaps we should
 >incorporate them with the other guidelines, just bite the bullet, and 
make
 >everything a requirement. Or maybe the confusion can be resolved just by
 >reorganizing lib_guide.htm. Opinions? Beman?

The current lib_guide is partly requirements, partly guidelines.  There is 
more material in header.htm, still move in imp_var.htm.  Some is probably 
way out of date, too.

I would say a general reorganization and renaming would be a good idea.

There might be requirements doc which is contains only requirements, and no 
guidelines.

There might be a guidelines doc which contains only guidelines, and no 
requirements. (Possibly a poor idea, see below.)

Of course the real world is messy.  Some items might migrate back and forth 
between requirement and guideline because we at Boost change our 
minds.  Other items might most logically appear in a general guidelines 
doc, but at Boost we want them to be requirements.

Additionally, I think your guidelines will be of real interest to quite a 
few organizations, but which they consider requirements, and which 
guidelines will obviously vary.  Who is your target audience?  I'd like to 
see us try to serve both ourselves and the general C++ community.

One way to deal with the above would be for your guidelines document to be 
all inclusive and complete.  Then the Boost requirements (currently named 
lib_guide.htm but will be renamed requirements.htm) page will simply 
reference any sections of the guidelines that we want to be absolute 
requirements.

Comments?

--Beman