Re: [boost] Review: Boost Coding Guidelines

From: Vladimir Prus (ghost_at_[hidden])
Date: 2001-07-25 10:01:26

On Tuesday 24 July 2001 20:44, David Abrahams wrote:

> I think I've caught my breath a bit and would be willing to help Beman
> refactor these guidelines according to what appears to be the emerging
> consensus... but I would like to be absolutely sure that it's going to be
> worth the investment. Is there really (or can there be) general agreement
> about which things should be guidelines and which should be requirements?
> Is there really a consensus that something derived from the proposed
> document is appropriate? How can we answer these questions?

I think that if you and Beman will start working on semantic guidelines, will 
not try to finish it ASAP, and will be open to suggestions/parts of other 
guidelines, then chances of getting good document are very high. And most of 
the proposed document is appropriate. 

As I have said already, separating semantical guidelines from all the others 
is the most important thing -- they are easy to separate, easy to agree upon 
and will have direct positive impact on QOI. Moreover, it will be of interest 
outside of boost.

Regarding which semantical guidelines should be requirements, I completely 
agree with Beman: 
        "Once a  set of guidelines has been widely used for a period of time, and 
        corner cases identified and dealt with, then you can lobby for applying 
        more of the guidelines more of the time."

So initially, requirements will contains only of boost conventions, and set 
of them given by Mark Rodgers is entirely appropriate:
        - How files are named and what directories they go in.
        - How classes are named.
        - How public and protected members are named.
        - What namespaces are used.
        - How macros are named.
        - Use (or not) of exception specs

-- 
Regards,
Vladimir