Re: [boost] Re: Re: [admin] Overlapping reviews -- should this be allowed?

From: Jeff Garland (jeff_at_[hidden])
Date: 2004-09-08 13:06:34

On Wed, 8 Sep 2004 11:37:22 -0600, Jonathan Turkanis wrote
> "Jeff Garland" <jeff_at_[hidden]> wrote in message:
> 
> > My only suggestion for shortening the formal review period would be to somehow
> > encourage or develop reviews of libraries in advance -- thus reducing the
> > amount of comment during the formal review. Anyone can go review boost::fsm,
> > just to pick one, and go review the code and docs and post it to the list.
> > The problem is, however, there is an additional dynamic during the formal
> > review -- reviewers read other reviews and discuss them.  Perhaps if there was
> > a way of gathering review comments over a longer period (via wiki page or
> > something) we could shorten this last phase.
> 
> This sounds like a good idea. But would it require that proposed 
> libraries be frozen for a certain period before the formal review 
> begins? 

I don't think you can completely control that -- I think reviews would need to
be collected against a certain version and then the author might be able to
annotate the review indicating that various issues had been resolved in a
later version, but this is pretty complex compared to what we do now...

> I know I took advantage of the long wait (something like 8 
> months) between proposal and review of iostreams to make lots of 
> improvements, some as recent as one month ago.

And I think that results in a more polished and complete library to review. 
For smaller libraries the wait probably doesn't help. Also, it's much more
tragic for the author if the library is rejected after extended work.  It's
also bad for users that would like to have these new libraries in boost sooner
rather than later....

Jeff