[boost] GIL Review

From: Christian Henning (chhenning_at_[hidden])
Date: 2006-10-25 09:36:35

Sorry, I overlooked that I sent my review to the boost user list. I
hope it's not too late.

Hi Here's my GIL review:

> Please always explicitly state in your review, whether you think the
> library should be accepted into Boost.

I vote to accept GIL into boost.

>  - What is your evaluation of the design?

I like the design and the use of modern C++ paradigms. The design
seems to well thought through and taken the whole discourse so far it
also seems to hold against heavy criticism. I don't think I'm the
position or having the skills to criticize the design. I'm a boost
user and happy to have found that place.

>  - What is your evaluation of the implementation?

Seems fine to me. Although I'm a bit anal when code lines that are
longer than 80 characters. But that is more minor. I'm not sure the
extensions are on review as well. If so, using plain old C code for
reading and writing to files, feels outdated.

>  - What is your evaluation of the documentation?

This my biggest problem so far. I like a lot of documentation. My
favorite is the one from ASIO. And in this way GIL is loosing. I do
understand that documentation is hard but I think it should be treated
as source code.

For example, I was trying to figure out how to implement indexed
images using GIL. Since, it's not there yet it should be easy to add.
If I would have known through the documentation the image views have
struct add_deref then I might have been able to figure out how to do
it. Also I think the documentation should not just enumerate but also
explain plus examples. As I said I'm a user and so I don't need to
understand all the details on how and why.

>  - What is your evaluation of the potential usefulness of the library?

There are millions of things the lib can do and hopefully will. Image
processing is just the start! I'm think of 3D, loading Quake models
and so on ...  . Would be cool if researchers
can use GIL to test new algorithms quickly in an efficient way.

>  - Did you try to use the library? With what compiler? Did you have
> any problems?

Yes, I'm using it and have send the creators extensions to read and
write bmp files. An early version. Sorry, Lubomir, haven't had a
single chance to work on it. I also played around with adding SDL to
GIL. Using SDL would make it easy to display a window with the actual
image.

I'm using VC2003 on Windows XP SP2.

>  - How much effort did you put into your evaluation? A glance? A quick
> reading? In-depth study?

I know about GIL for quite a while now. I have tried some things and
was usually successful in implementing. But I haven't done an in-depth
study.

>  - Are you knowledgeable about the problem domain?

I would be the last to call myself an expert in image processing. I
know basics and eager to learn more. The library will certainly help
me.

Regards,
Christian