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

From: David Abrahams (dave_at_[hidden])
Date: 2006-06-09 12:54:06

"Andy Little" <andy_at_[hidden]> writes:

> "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 even sure why I mentioned moderators.

>> 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. 

Not sure about either of those statements.  Certainly it should be
clear from my review that I only had a very brief look at the library,
which ought to dilute my vote considerably.

> 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!)

Yeah, but it's not "my house;" it's ours.  I may have put in a few
more years in construction than some other people here, it's true.

>>> 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, 

Yes.

> 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

Hadn't read the other reviews.

> 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.  

It certainly wasn't my intention that my review contain any "knife
twisting."  On the other hand, it was intentionally pointed -- I
wanted to make sure that it was well understood (failed obviously).  I
didn't mean my review to be hurtful; if it was, I'm sorry.

> If this formed the total substance of a review of mine I would not
> feel justified in casting a vote at all.

Where concept documentation is concerned, IMO, a focused "no" with
very specific critiques (even if it isn't weakend by being based only
on a narrow view of the submission) is more valuable than a "yes" with
a general request to improve the docs, especially if lots of other
people are voting yes.  In case it isn't obvious, I feel very strongly
about the importance of the specification -- in many ways it's more
important than the implementation -- and I want that to be taken
seriously.

>> 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.

Yes, I know.  I was clumsily trying to make a more general statement
about what I am doing with this vote.  If I had wanted it to be
personal, I'd have said "you" and not "Andy."

> The point re using underscores is trivial. It was done because
> QuickBook wont accept '-' in link names. It speeded things up
> slightly.  

There may be a trivial reason for it, but it's not a trivial point.
It has a big impact on comprehensibility.

> 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 understand that you decided other areas were more important, but I
hope you can understand that sensible concept docs are a priority for
me.  BTW, if you are having trouble writing concept docs you can ask
on the list for help with specific problems.  I'd be happy to try to
help.

>> 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.

Agreed, to soften my post I could have added my speculation about the
interface being nice, but that really is just speculation.  Aside from
that I said essentially the same thing ("I think this is an important
domain") in my original posting,

>>> 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.

The environment is not hostile; just demanding.  Actually, not the
environment -- it's might just be me.  Boost doesn't always do what I
want.

>> 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.

Sorry, it was meant to be impersonal (since it was critical -- I
assumed a personal post would have been viewed as an attack -- that
sure didn't work out well) but not ambiguous.  You obviously invested
a lot of effort; I hope we'll be able to accept _your_ library.

That said, to get _my_ personal "yes" vote, I insist that certain
things be cleaned up substantially.  Of course you could choose to
ignore me, but obviously I hope you won't, or I wouldn't have voted.

>> 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.

I'm sure we can convince him to come around.  

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