[boost] Re: Customer Friendlier Boost Installation

From: David Abrahams (dave_at_[hidden])
Date: 2005-05-25 21:36:37

"David Bergman" <davidb_at_[hidden]> writes:

> David Abrahams wrote: 
>
>> Oliver Kullmann <O.Kullmann_at_[hidden]> writes:
>> 
>> > But for these "millions of C++ users" Boost is not the right choice.
>> 
>> It should be.
>
> Oliver was talking about those millions of C++ users that "see no benefit in
> smart pointers", "see MPL as black art" etc. Right, Oliver? I really hope
> that Boost will not try to fit the needs of those less experienced
> developers, since that will, IMHO, inevitably make the library less useful
> for those of us who actually do type "make -k" now and then...

The usefulness of smart pointers and MPL for people has no correlation
with whether they feel comfortable with make -k

>> > The exciting thing about Boost is that it is Avantgarde, a 
>> good deal 
>> > of interesting research(!), and not compromising on 
>> quality. That's at 
>> > least my understanding of Boost.
>> 
>> We don't want to be Avantgarde/research; to the extent that 
>> we are, we need to fix it.
>
> I agree with that, unless one replaces the "Avantgarde/research" with "for
> experts." I.e., I want Boost to remain a choice for C++ experts.

We never wanted to be the sole province of experts.  We always wanted
widespread usage.  If you want to be a member of an exclusive
"experts" club this is the wrong place to find it.

> Most of those "millions of C++ users" that Oliver is refering to are
> actually quite junior C developers who have been forced to use some C++
> keywords and OOP in order to exploit MFC instead of raw Win32
> programming.

Yes.

> And those developers already have MFC and ATL, and would probably
> only use 'shared_ptr' from Boost.

That's a good start.

> What I am saying is that it would not be unreasonable to expect the
> targeted developers to actually type 'bjam', and perhaps even set
> the proper environment variables.

It would be unreasonable for some of them.  I've worked with quite
advanced and competent developers who are only comfortable in an IDE.

> I do not think we have to flirt with the masses

Too late ;-)

>  - developers that would not use the facilities found in Boost
> anyway - in order to position it better for incorporation into
> future C++ standardizations.

Yes, we do.  We need maximal adoption in order to be best positioned
for standardization.  Not just to get the libraries accepted, but also
so they are really deserving of standardization.

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