Re: [boost] "boost cold shoulder" (was proposal for #pragma oncesupport)

Subject: Re: [boost] "boost cold shoulder" (was proposal for #pragma oncesupport)
From: David Bergman (David.Bergman_at_[hidden])
Date: 2009-06-10 11:46:07

We have two factions here:

1. The old conservative, Windows-hating, folks, whose only drive, or  
boost, is that they type "boost" quite often.

2. The young pragmatic, "Do What Make Most People Happy", crowd.

:-)

PS: I belong to category 1, clearly.

/David

On Jun 10, 2009, at 11:39 AM, Sid Sacek wrote:

> John and Pete,
>
> I do appreciate your insights into the inner workings of the Boost
> community.  I'm not discouraged about the lack of interest in my
> suggestion, but I was somewhat surprised.  Boost libraries are one of
> those things that make life better for programming engineers.  I
> believed that was the unwritten philosophy behind Boost, to "Make Life
> Better."  Extending that philosophical notion, the Boost libraries  
> would
> also know about the shortcomings of compilers and operating systems  
> and
> help to improve their performance as well, simply because it "makes  
> life
> better."
>
> I suppose I must have been mistaken about that... perhaps not  
> everybody
> in the Boost community has feelings of magnanimity and charity.
>
> -Sid Sacek
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: boost-bounces_at_[hidden]
> [mailto:boost-bounces_at_[hidden]] On Behalf Of John Phillips
> Sent: Tuesday, June 09, 2009 6:15 PM
> To: boost_at_[hidden]
> Subject: Re: [boost] "boost cold shoulder" (was proposal for #pragma
> oncesupport)
>
> Pete Bartlett wrote:
>>> I brought this topic up a couple of months ago, and I got the "Boost
>>> Cold Shoulder".
>>>
>>> You see, I believe the head-honchos here are GCC aficionados and
> don't
>>> care much about Bill Gate's compilers.
>>>
>>> I hope you do better than I did.
>>>
>>> -Sid Sacek
>>
>> I'm not any sort of honcho here so I hope you don't mind if I
> disagree.
>>
>
>   I'm going to disagree, as well. I just went back into the archives
> and looked at your thread, and I'm confused by your perception of a  
> cold
>
> shoulder. I count 26 posts in the thread over less than 4 days, in a
> discussion that includes some library maintainers and one of the
> moderators. This a reasonably active discussion for around here.
>
>   I agree that no one showed up and said "You have permission, go  
> ahead
>
> and do it." However, as Pete points out, that just isn't the way Boost
> works. All broad action in Boost happens by first building a wide
> consensus in the community. If you notice, when moderators such as  
> Dave
>  or Beman have ideas for changes, they follow the same process of
> discussion on the list and building consensus. On some occasions they
> don't generate enough interest or agreement and their ideas go by the
> wayside. It isn't always quick, but it is the way Boost works.
>
>   More broadly, please continue contributing. Not every idea you have
> will be what the community does, but getting your ideas in the mix is
> central to how we function. (For the record, some of my ideas have  
> gone
> down in flames, or just produced no broad interest, so I know where  
> of I
>
> speak.)
>
> 			John
>
>
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