Re: [boost] [PQS] future of pqs

From: Andy Little (andy_at_[hidden])
Date: 2006-06-19 16:42:34

"Janek Kozicki" <janek_listy_at_[hidden]> wrote in message
news:20060618012319.174d7a9e_at_absurd...
> Andy Little said:     (by the date of Sat, 17 Jun 2006 14:25:50 +0100)
>
>> I thought I should say where I am planning to go with PQS library, especially
>> to
>> Janek , as he has experimented with using the library in his own work.
>>
>> First a lot depends on the outcome of the review. If accepted into boost, I
>> can
>> put the library into Boosts CVS. If not I will have to look around and put it
>> elsewhere, possibly on sourceforge. I'm basing that on the high level of
>> interest in the subject of quantities brought up by the PQS review.
>
> very good idea, possibly other people will be interested to be able to
> commit their own changes in the library. If it is decided to decuple the
> library into several parts I can assume that a bigger number of people
> will want to contribute (as it will be easier to not mess with the
> separated work of other people).

The current situation with no CVS home for PQS is inadequate, however based on
the feedback in the review I am working on various changes. As soon as possible
I will try to put the library on a public database, but still with the intent of
making the library part of boost if not accepted this time.  The one difficulty
is with using the boost namespace outside boost, which is bad form IIRC, so it
may be MACRO namespace time soon, if PQS is not accepted, else it will all have
to be changed back for another review !

> Like Oleg Abrosimov and Noel Belcourt could possibly contribute to
> Dimensions part, Leland Brown, John Phillips to Units part, and Geoffrey
> Irving, Leland Brown and me (Janek Kozicki) to Linear Algebra part.
> Perhaps I have missed others I'm sorry! This discussion is getting HUGE!

Yes and the 3D vector space stuff is a bit over my head, but I guess you guys
know what you are talking about! Seriously I need to sort out the Concept
documentation, so  hopefully PQS can be compatible with 3rd party libraries or
vice versa. or at least it can be used as one model for testing etc.

>> Either way I am planning a major upheaval of the code (including  possibly a
>> change of the library name etc), which will break the current interface. Its
>> also clear that I need to redo the documentation, which is a time consuming
>> process.
>
> I hope that the wiki will grow into a very useful specification, that
> can be then turned into a very useful documentation. The task ahead of
> us is not easy, nor small, but I really hope that with so much interest
> on the boost mailing list we can do this. Although of course it will
> take time, because we all have other work to do.

The only problem with a Wiki is that it requires a lot of attention AFAICS,
though I havent run one. An alternative might be to put "quantities and quantity
spaces" related papers in the Boost Vault. That would be less work anyway! OTOH
if you want to set up a Wiki I'll not stop you!

>> Regarding the geometry end, it seems to me that the geometry doesnt
>> need to be tied to the particular pqs type. Using Boost.Typeof it should be
>> possible to implement geometric entities that will work with the types in pqs
>> or
>> others if written in terms of Concepts.
>
> I want to reiterate that "Geometry" is a too general name. A better name
> is linear algebra - as it is exactly vectors and matrices. I'm not sure
> if quaternions fit this name, though. So maybe there is a better name.

"types and algorithms for quantity related spaces" ?

regards
Andy little