[boost] Egg review result

From: dan marsden (danmarsden_at_[hidden])
Date: 2008-05-17 18:59:34

This is a summary of the review of the Egg library by Shunsuke Sogame.

The main issue with this review was the low number of reviews submitted, despite a reasonable amount of discussion on the list. In total only 1 review was received, from Giovanni Piero Deretta. This review was a yes vote, contingent on a mini review of improved documentation. Given this extremely low review count, unfortunately Egg cannot be accepted into Boost at this time. The remainder of this summary will cover some of the themes relating to lack of reviews, and also other highlights of the review.

I'll start with some positive notes. Several comments on the list suggested that functionality in Egg was wanted by users, and that they would like to see Egg in Boost in some form in the future. Several writers also pointed out the high quality of the implementation of Egg, and technical issues were not really a focus of the discussions.

During discussions on the developer several reviewers comments on the quality / style of the documentation for Egg. Motivation seemed to be a big issue in these comments, questions of the form "why should I use Egg versus Boost.XXX" were common. There typically were good reasons to use Egg, but these were not apparent to readers of the documentation. A related issue that cropped up was the sheer scale of Egg, one potential review was withdrawn as the scale of Egg was so large that the reviewer felt he could not do it justice. A couple of reviews pointed out that the documentation could be hard to follow, sometimes as the assumed expertise of the readers was possibly too high, and also for other reasons, such as the __ prefixed notation used in a lot of the documentation. Both Giovanni and Daniel Walker generously offered to provide assistance with the documentation for Egg.

Joel de Guzman pointed out that that the timing of the review was poor, as it was in the immediate run up to Boostcon, and many potential reviewers would be busy with preparation for that event. This comment was supported by several people I discussed this with at Boostcon.

There was much incredibly detailed technical discussion, which I cannot do justice to here. Those interested will be able to find the discussion on the mailing list archives.

In summary I believe key points of the review were:

* The number of reviews was insufficient to accept the library in its current form. This seemed to be due to documentation issues making reviews difficult, and the poor timing of the review before Boostcon.
* The library was of high technical quality, and the functionality was needed by Boost users in some form.
* Documentation issues would definitely need to be addressed before the library could be satisfactorily reviewed and accepted into Boost.

I'd like to thank Shunsuke Sogame for submitting the library, and the hard work that he has put in so far. I'd like to encourage him to continue his efforts, and to take up the offers of assistance with documentation if he feels it appropriate. I personally would like to see many parts of Egg in Boost in some form in the future, and other reviewers seemed to agree.

I would also like to thank the reviewer, and the many people that contributed discussion on the list, hopefully this will lead to an improved Egg returning in future.

Thanks

Dan Marsden
Review Manager



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