Re: [boost] [Review][PQS] Concept names?

From: Andy Little (andy_at_[hidden])
Date: 2006-06-09 05:12:51

"David Abrahams"  wrote
> "Andy Little" wrote
>> "David Abrahams" wrote
>>> "Paul A Bristow" writes:
>>
>>>> What design changes would persuade you to vote for this attempt?
>>>
>>> I haven't looked at enough of it to know if there are other issues,
>>> but in order to resolve my problems with the issues I've raised:
>>>
>>>  Clarity and conformance to Boost/C++ standards and conventions.
>>
>> To be honest David, I am finding this quite difficult to handle. On
>> the one hand I think the PQS library is good, there seems to be
>> interest and a need. On the other hand, at least unofficially, Boost
>> is your party
>
> I don't know what that means.  I am one of several moderators; it's
> not "mine."

Put it another away. You have put a lot of work into Boost. Your vote in a
review is an order of magnitude more powerful than mine (And incidentally that
is as it should be. OTOH if you were in my house and wanted to knock a wall
down, your vote certainly wouldnt be anything like as powerful as mine!)

>> and my impression is that for whatever reason you wouldnt be too
>> happy about this library becoming part of boost.
>
> No, not for "whatever reasons," for exactly the reasons I posted.  It
> seems like you're not responding to what I wrote, but something else.

AFAIK your impressions have been formed not even by downloading the library
itself but by downloading the pdf documentation, which I put there as some
previous reviewers said they found it helpful to print it out. Once there you
headed for the two areas that other reviewers found poor and started
slashing!( Pavel Vozenilek made the same overall point but without needing to
twist the knife.) That is the sum total of your review AFAICS.
If this formed the total substance of a review of mine I would not feel
justified in casting a vote at all.

> I would even be open to being convinced to change my vote, if the
> author exhibited sufficient interest in and responsiveness to my
> concerns.

The authors name is Andy BTW.

The point re using underscores is trivial. It was done because QuickBook wont
accept '-' in link names. It speeded things up slightly.
The C++ concepts section is a mess.. Sure, as I said to Pavel Vozenilek. It was
the first time I have written this kind of documentation and I found it
difficult. I decided to spend time on other areas of the documentation before
the review.

> I haven't looked at the code, but I really like the idea of
> what this library does, and it probably has a pretty nice interface --
> at the code level.

Wow! That is encouraging. It would have been helpful to have that included in 
the
review. It would have lightened the tone. As it stands I read every point made
as negative.

>> Coincidentally nor would I.  The situation with PQS is that to do it
>> justice would take more time than I am prepared to invest.
>
> Wow.  Why did you submit it?

Its a very good library, but I am too old to see the need to fight for every
inch, if the environment is hostile. That is a waste of energy. I have better
things to do.

>> I would also need to learn a lot about the internals of boost which
>> would tie me in deeper than I wish.  I have spent a lot of time,
>> particularly on the documentation, over the past few months, but
>> unfortunately writing documentation doesnt come easy to me
>
> Nor to most people.  Writing documentation takes a great deal of
> attention, and anyone submitting a Boost library should be prepared to
> spend at least as long documenting as coding.
>
>> and I think I would find it quite difficult to complete to the
>> required standard, at least without a huge investment of time. ( At
>> the end of the day I am basically an average part-timecoder that
>> somehow got involved way above my level)
>>
>> I think the best solution in light of your comments is to withdraw
>> PQS from consideration and hope that someone else more in touch with
>> the boost way comes forward with a Units library.
>>
>> Funnily enough I think both you and I would feel much happier that
>> way.
>
> That's not funny at all, and it's not what I'd like at all.  I'm not
> sure what gave you that impression.  I thought I made it clear that "I
> hope we'll be able to accept a different version of this library" and
> also that my negative vote was made with regret.

FWIW I read that different version as implying a version of the library written
by someone else. That was the impact. Re-reading it, I still get that
impression. Its ambiguous and impersonal.

> If you do decide to simply withdraw without making improvements, I'll
> be sorry.

OK, that is helpful, as were the encouraging comments above. OTOH I already did
withdraw it in a mail to Fred Bertsch. I'm not quite sure about whether I can
un-withdraw it or not. I will have to see what he says.

regards
Andy Little