Re: [boost] Adobe Source Libraries, GIL, and Boost

From: Jeff Garland (jeff_at_[hidden])
Date: 2006-07-02 14:15:35

Hi Sean --

A couple thoughts and pointers below:

Sean Parent wrote:
> I _really_ wish that I had enough time/resources on my team to take  
> some parts of ASL and contribute them to Boost. However, my teams  
> focus currently needs to stay on the higher level libraries (which I  
> don't think are ready for Boost yet) and we simply can't afford the  
> time to go through the submission process.
> 
> But I'm 100% supportive of Lubomir's contribution of GIL (Lubomir is  
> not on my team, and I'm thrilled that he can take the time for this  
> submission to Boost - just I'm I'm thrilled that we were able to  
> release it as part of ASL). GIL is a very significant piece of work.

I'll just say a public thanks to yourself, Adobe, and the folks behind ASL for 
dipping their toe in the open source water.  I think it will take several 
years to see the full effect, but it's very exciting to me to see you guys 
getting a chance to bring these ideas out into the world.

> I will also support anyone who would like to borrow portions of ASL  
> to contribute them to Boost.

This is really great -- it seems there is much common activity with other 
things happening in Boost (see below).

> Some libraries that I think would be interesting to get into Boost  
> with some comments about what I see as still needing to be done.
 >
> Forest <http://opensource.adobe.com/group__asl__tutorials__forest.html>
> .....

We have an active SOC project to build a generic tree...

https://boost-consulting.com:8443/trac/soc/wiki/tree
https://boost-consulting.com:8443/trac/soc/wiki/tree/design

> Range Based Algorithms (using the boost range library) <http:// 
> opensource.adobe.com/group__standard__extensions.html>
>

Eric Niebler has written some range algorithms in the vault -- be nice to see 
if he's covered all the ones you'all have:

http://www.boost-consulting.com/vault/index.php?&direction=0&order=&directory=Algorithms

> ZUIDs <http://opensource.adobe.com/classadobe_1_1zuid__t.html>

Hmm, I guess I would think zuid should be its own little library.  There is 
already a GUID in the vault which again might benefit from collaboration here:

http://www.boost-consulting.com/vault/index.php -- guid_v3.zip

> md5 and SHA code
> 	<http://opensource.adobe.com/classadobe_1_1md5__t.html>
> 	<http://opensource.adobe.com/group__adobe__sha.html>
> 	Review and a short tutorial

I wonder if these would be logical additions to boost.hash which is new in 1.34?

http://engineering.meta-comm.com/resources/cs-win32_metacomm/doc/html/hash.html

> ONCE <http://opensource.adobe.com/group__adobe__once.html>
> 
> ThreadID <http://opensource.adobe.com/group__asl__thread__id.html>
> 	Another good addition to Boost threads.

I don't know if we've really found an active maintainer for 
Boost.Threads....library abandonment is starting to become a much bigger issue 
for Boost as time goes on :-(

> Final	<http://opensource.adobe.com/group__adobe__final.html>
> 	I don't use inheritance much but this would be a nice addition to  
> Boost utilities.

Yep.

> Counter <http://opensource.adobe.com/classadobe_1_1counter__t.html>
> 	If boost would surface the lightweight mutex used in shared_ptr -  
> this would go away.

I'll let Peter take this one...

> value_t <http://opensource.adobe.com/classadobe_1_1value__t.html>

Agree, we'll have to push Kevlin to be more active ;-)

> regular_object <http://opensource.adobe.com/ 
> classadobe_1_1regular__object.html>
> 	This is a generalization of value_t (and boost any) - the idea is to  
> be able to parameters an "any" object by concept. Mat Marcus has been  
> doing a fair amount of work with this library. Needs better docs and  
> tutorial.

Interesting. Don't know of any current Boost work here.

> dictionary_t, array_t, name_t <http://opensource.adobe.com/ 
> group__asl__tutorials__dictionary__t.html>

Don't know of any current Boost work here.

> Copy-On-Write <http://opensource.adobe.com/ 
> classadobe_1_1copy__on__write.html>

I guess the ever-languishing policy_pointer is the closest Boost work.

> XML Parser <http://opensource.adobe.com/ 
> classadobe_1_1xml__parser__t.html>

There is a Boost xml, but I haven't seen much Boost activity here.  Property 
tree does some too, but full XML support is hard enough that it will be hard 
to do in Boost.

http://www.boost-consulting.com/vault/index.php?direction=0&order=&directory=Progamming%20Interfaces

> Wow - that's not a complete list (much longer than I set out to write  
> - I forget how large of a library we've created!). If you're not  
> aware of ASL - it's all released under the MIT license (making it  
> fairly straight forward to get through a code audit). I'd be happy to  
> help out anyone who has the time to prepare some of these libraries  
> (or any other library from ASL) for inclusion in Boost - ASL would  
> also benefit from such an effort.

Hopefully people will make you very busy :-)

Jeff