[boost] Re: Re: Naming Proposed Libraries

From: Jonathan Turkanis (technews_at_[hidden])
Date: 2005-03-05 15:54:36

Rob Stewart wrote:
> From: "Jonathan Turkanis" <technews_at_[hidden]>

>> I understand the problem. With the interfaces library, the
>> documentation contains a prominent disclaimer, and so does every
>> source file.
>
> That's a terrific approach, but it does mean you have to remember
> to remove the disclaimers when the library enters the review
> queue.

I think keeping the disclaimer until acceptance would be better. With the
iostreams library removing the disclaimer from the source files just took just a
few seconds; removing it from HTML documents was a little harder so I stopped
putting disclaimers on each documentation file.

>> I can't think of anything better right now, but to me "proposed"
>> suggests that the libray is in the review queue.
>
> Agreed.
>
> How about just omitting "Boost?"  At this point, the "Boost
> Interfaces Library" is just the "Turkanis Interfaces Library"

Uncle Jonathan's Home-Style Interface Library?

> or
> the "Interfaces Library," right?  IOW, make it wrong to modify a
> library name with "Boost" until it has been accepted (though the
> documentation can be written as if it had been accepted, with
> disclaimers initially).

I think having a name which sounds good is important for a library, even in the
early stages. Also, changing the name after the library has acquired a
significant body of users, or after articles have been written about it, is
confusing and may slow the libraries adoption by more users.

In the case at hand, I believe "Interfaces Library" is a lousy name. If I were
naming the library with no though to its possible future acceptance into boost,
I might call it "C++ with Interfaces" (the name of Christopher's article). If it
were eventually accepted into Boost, I'd change the name to Boost.Interfaces,
but the de facto name, at least for a while, would be "Boost.Interfaces
(formerly C++ with Interfaces)."

To sum up, I prefer Dave's original suggestion, the
"[proposed/contemplated/suggested] Boost Interfaces Library".

Jonathan