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

From: David Abrahams (dave_at_[hidden])
Date: 2005-04-27 15:18:46

"Andrei Alexandrescu (See Website For Email)" <SeeWebsiteForEmail_at_[hidden]> writes:

> 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) 

All of them, to different extents by different people.  Some people
were very concerned about these criteria.  Others apparently (and IMO
wrongly) thought the benefits of having export immediately outweighed
the potential problems.

> 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? 

Maybe because Robert was listing points upon which the proposal didn't
fare well but that he thought were worthy of consideration?  You're
not helping your case at all by claiming everything points to bias.
It just looks paranoid.

> 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.

You don't seriously think that the LWG fails to recognize and consider
these primary concerns about shared_ptr?

>> 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, not but it's not a long way from what you *actually wrote* to
"evil spirits."  Starting from "conflict of interest" connected to
lobbying and voting and then proceeding to a suggestion that people
are claiming something they don't "really really believe" and
"convenient" forgetting of crucial facts, there's a lot in there to
take as disparaging.

> Maybe "conflict of interest" ain't the proper syntagm, 

You bet it ain't proper, whatever syntagm means.  What the heck's a
syntagm?

> and "unintentional bias" would be.

And that would be practically tautological.  "How does the committee
deal with the fact that members are human beings?" is not a very
interesting (or answerable) question.

> 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. 

Think again.  Your last post was unreasonable.

> Naturally I'd believe others might be as well, and I don't think I
> dispense offense in saying that.

Whether you dispense offense is in the ear of the listener, and I'm
hearing it.

> 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.

Absolutely correct.  As I said, you can't design that out of the
system, so you'd better learn to work with it.

-- 
Dave Abrahams
Boost Consulting
www.boost-consulting.com