[boost] Review of the Accumulators Library

From: Tom Brinkman (reportbase_at_[hidden])
Date: 2007-02-03 12:35:44

•     What is your evaluation of the design?
Very large number of new ideas presented in this library.  I miss the old
days where I would just pass a simple array into a function and get a
result.  Now, it seems that I have to learn a whole new statistical
framework to do what used to be relatively simple.   I think that the design
will be intimidating to many users.

That being said, I always like Eric Neibler's libraries.  His designs are
always first-rate and invariably, they do begin to grow on you.  I have
forced myself to study the designs of the latest boost libraries, this one
included.  Each has forced a whole now vocabulary on me and it is getting a
little tiresome.

    •     What is your evaluation of the implementation?
Very creative and full of ideas that would take months for me to fully
digest.  It meets my own personal criteria for what makes a good boost
library.

    •     What is your evaluation of the documentation?
Assumes that you have a statistics background and comfortable with the
advanced c++.  Similar to my review of the GIL graphics library, the
documentation would benefit from a more thorough and gentle "getting
started" document.

    •     What is your evaluation of the potential usefulness of
the library?
The C++ could community definitely benefit from mathematical frameworks like
this.  I wonder if it might be a little bit ahead of its time.

    •     Did you try to use the library? With what compiler?         Did
you have any problems?
All examples compiled without any problems on the latest version Ubuntu
Linux.

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

    •     Are you knowledgeable about the problem domain?
Yes

And finally, every review should answer this question:
    •     Do you think the library should be accepted as a Boost
        library?

I wish I had time to contribute more to the discussion and give more
meaningful feedback.  I will be using this library and get alot more
experience with it in the coming months.  The scope of this framework is
very large.  I would hope and expect that as the best c++ mathematicians get
a chance to work with this library, it will continue to grow and improve.

Yes, this library should be approved for inclusion into boost.  Nice job
Eric.  Thank you so much for your continuing contributions to the boost/c++
community.