Re: [boost] [library process] should we more actively pursue university thesis projects?

From: Doug Gregor (dgregor_at_[hidden])
Date: 2004-11-08 13:33:30

On Nov 6, 2004, at 5:46 AM, Thorsten Ottosen wrote:

> Dear all,
>
> Following our discussion of the unicode library, would it not be a 
> good idea
> to persue such efforts more aggresively?
>
> I could imagine it would help bring forward libraries much faster. I 
> think it
> would be reasonable that
> the boost comunity provided
>
> 1. project descriptions

This is a good idea regardless of whether we are going to ask 
universities to write some Boost libraries. We often discuss potential 
libraries on the mailing list that never come into existence, but 
someone picks up later on and would greatly benefit from a recount of 
what was discussed in the form of a project description.

> 2. help and guidelines throughout the 6-12 months of the project

Again, this is useful for anyone bringing their first library up for 
review. Granted, it's probably more important in the academic setting 
(an outside contact person).

> If we had small papers explaining potential projects, these can be 
> sent to
> universities which can the in turn
> suggest them to their students.
[snip]
> Any thoughts?

Well, I have a few comments. The Graph library has benefited greatly 
from student projects from Generic Programming classes at various 
universities (the isomorphism, Floyd-Warshall, and A* search algorithms 
are examples of this), so it can work. Additionally, several good 
libraries have come from universities. So the work of students at 
universities can be very good, of course.

On the other hand, the motivations of universities and especially 
students writing thesis projects is very, very different from the 
motivations of the average Boost developer. The emphasis is on 
minimizing development time and writing papers about the result (new 
algorithms, new data structures, etc.), not on creating and maintaining 
high-quality software.

So, here is my intended point: Unless there is a shift in perception so 
that creating and maintaining a Boost library (or software in general) 
provides the same academic benefit (as a conference paper or journal 
article would), the motivations of universities won't line up with the 
motivations of the Boost community, so I don't see much benefit in 
soliciting libraries. Smaller bits of functionality (graph or string 
algorithms, for instance) might be better-suited for class projects, 
although they would be too small for thesis projects. Interested 
individuals, whether in academia or industry, will still be able to 
find Boost regardless.

        Doug