Re: [boost] Proposal: Add Loki Library's SafeFormat to Boost:

Subject: Re: [boost] Proposal: Add Loki Library's SafeFormat to Boost:
From: Joel de Guzman (joel_at_[hidden])
Date: 2009-01-01 21:21:23

David Abrahams wrote:
> on Thu Jan 01 2009, Joel de Guzman <joel-AT-boost-consulting.com> wrote:

>>> The fact that names are in no way descriptive is another huge time
>>> waster.
>> Just curious. How much time did you waste before you realize
>> that Boost.Spirit was a parser? Can you explain why it is a
>> "huge time waster"? IMO, it takes a second to know, while
>> browsing http://www.boost.org/doc/libs, that Spirit is a parser.
> 
> True, but once you learn that, if there are 4-5 sublibraries that also
> have non-mnemonic names, it does start to look pretty confusing.

That's a good and valid point alright.

>>> Now you want to mix in another facility?  At least I know (Or think I
>>> know) what spirit was intended to be used for.  Now I'm not so sure.
>>> If this is a new facitity - wouldn't Boost custom/rules require that
>>> it be subjected a new review?
>> Where is this custom/rules and when did this it start to apply?
> 
> There are no such rules.  There's nothing wrong with extending the
> functionality of a library.  Obviously, tacking the functionality of the
> filesystem library onto Boost.Python wouldn't make sense, but I think
> parsing and generation may be a bit more related than that ;-)

Actually, we are contemplating on asking for an informal review.
There's no precedence for this in boost, so we're not quite sure
how to approach it. We do value feedback, critiques, suggestions
from the community --give people a chance to weigh in their
thoughts on issues like API, usability, implementation, documentation,
etc. Surely, it can't be the accept/reject kind of review, as it would
be quite odd if Spirit gets rejected in its second review.

Your thoughts?

Regards,
-- 
Joel de Guzman
http://www.boostpro.com
http://spirit.sf.net