[boost] Re: [Review] Named parameters library

From: Darryl Green (darryl.green_at_[hidden])
Date: 2004-11-13 02:54:43

> 	- What is your evaluation of the design?

Based on the docs, it appears to address a real problem, and does it in a way 
that results in a very natural interface when using functions that use the 
library. Writing such functions looks to be a bit less straight-forward, but no 
more so than any (less complete) alternative approach I am aware of.

> 	- What is your evaluation of the implementation?

It is a lot better than anything I could have come up with (faint praise 
indeed). The bulk of the implementation is machinery to provide a useable 
interface - which it seems to have succeeded in doing.

> 	- What is your evaluation of the documentation?

Pretty good. The automatic overload generation should be added to the tutorial, 
and a very basic example using it should be added to the tests and referenced 
from the tutorial.
 
> 	- What is your evaluation of the potential usefulness of the  library?

I wouldn't use it often, but I see its main utility, assuming it obtains 
widespread use, being a reduction in the variety of ways of (partially) 
addressing this problem. Unfortunately, there also exists the possibility that 
it will simply introduce one more variation into the mix. However, unless there 
are some significant performance issues (are there?) I wouldn't expect this to 
be the case.

> 	- Did you try to use the library?  With what compiler?  Did  you have 
> any problems?

Yes, but I haven't updated to the pre-release or cvs boost so ran into mpl 
changes.

> 	- How much effort did you put into your evaluation? A glance? A quick  
> reading? In-depth study?

More than a glance, but not that much more.

> 	- Are you knowledgeable about the problem domain?

I guess so - its a pretty basic one. What I'm not sufficiently familiar with is 
the solution domain - I don't see any problems with the lib, but that is 
limited by my ability to even start to look for them.

> As always, please remember to clearly state whether you believe the 
> library should be accepted into Boost.

I vote for acceptance.