[boost] Re: TR2 and C++0x heads up

From: Andrei Alexandrescu (See Website For Email) (SeeWebsiteForEmail_at_[hidden])
Date: 2005-04-27 13:26:35

klarer_at_[hidden] wrote:
 > 1. is it implementable?
 > 2. has it been implemented?
 > 3. has the implementation been tested?
 > 4. has it been used?  how widely?
 > 5. is it sufficiently useful?
 > 6. can it be specified rigorously for a standard?
 > 7. does it integrate well with the rest of standard C++?

How many of these criteria were applied to export? :o) And to illustrate 
bias again, why weren't:

8. can it be implemented efficiently?
9. could users pay for features they're not using?

there? That's where policy_ptr might be in better shape than shared_ptr. 
If I were around, I would have made sure those criteria are included as 
well.

> It's easy to petulantly assert that the people who expressed "no support 
> .. at this time" are motivated by conflict of interest or evil spirits, 
> but the simple fact is that a group of responsible and professional agents 
> didn't find the proposal compelling enough.  That's the thing about 
> proposals; you need to sell them.  There are lots of powerful ways to sell 
> an idea, and attending a meeting to address concerns and reservations is 
> only one of them (for example, Boost is a brilliant mechanism for proving 
> the value of a proposal, and TR1 demonstrates that).  Disparaging the 
> folks to whom you want to sell an idea is not an effective sales technique 
> and, obviously, it's counter-productive since it impairs your credibility.

Hey, nobody disparaged anyone; I took time to explain how I myself am 
biased, and how others might be biased, and I also gave an example of a 
potential bias. From there to "evil spirits" it's a long way. Maybe 
"conflict of interest" ain't the proper syntagm, and "unintentional 
bias" would be.

Library design and appreciation is subjective; that makes it hard to 
stay unbiased towards a particular design. I know I am biased myself, 
albeit not to the point of being unreasonable. Naturally I'd believe 
others might be as well, and I don't think I dispense offense in saying 
that.

At the end of the day, it's very true: one has to sell one's design, and 
that happens exactly because appreciating ("buying" :o)) a design is an 
experience that has a strong subjective aspect to it.

Andrei