Re: [boost] Attention Boosters

From: Martin Bonner (martin.bonner_at_[hidden])
Date: 2006-12-12 08:13:28

----Original Message----
From: boost-bounces_at_[hidden]
[mailto:boost-bounces_at_[hidden]] On Behalf Of Satoshi Fujimoto
Sent: 12 December 2006 07:23 To: boost_at_[hidden]
Subject: Re: [boost] Attention Boosters

>> The quality of this crucial document shapes our users' first
>> experiences with Boost, and for many, determines whether they use
>> Boost or give up in frustration.
> It's not about what you have wrote, but about what you did not write.
> So its just a suggestion.
> 
> If this document is for the boost begginers, isn't is good to
> show which library is 'easy' to start?
> I know it is a bit controversial subject, but it is almost clear
> that, at least for C++ beginners (and maybe for most of the 'ordinary'
> C++ programmers) libraries like MPL or spirit is difficult.
> While libraries like boost:timer and shared_ptr is easy to use.
> 
> So my suggestion is to make some section like "where to start?"
> and make some pointers like....
> 
> for C++ beginners, try shared_ptr, boost::timer, etc

I disagree.  I think most people will download boost because they have a
particular problem to solve and hope that boost will help them solve it,
and not because they think "I ought to use boost".  If the problem they
have is that they neeed some sort of parser, telling them to start with
boost::timer is just wasting their time.

> for those interested in functional programming, see function, bind....
> for those interested in numerical programming, see random, uBLAS

Of course that sort of description is useful, but not, I think, in
"Getting Started".  By the time people get here, they have already
decided they want to use a particular library (or libraries), and just
want to know how to get past all the tedium of getting the libraries and
includes in the right place.  (Remember this was the point of the
original "Hello World" - it's a trivial program, but getting it to
compile and execute is/was non-trivial.)

> and so on and on.
> 
> Hope this help.

-- 
Martin Bonner
Pi Technology, Milton Hall, Ely Rd, Cambridge, CB24 6WZ, ENGLAND
[phone]