Re: [boost] Shouldn't both logging proposals be reviewed in the same formal review

Subject: Re: [boost] Shouldn't both logging proposals be reviewed in the same formal review
From: Vladimir Batov (vladimir.batov_at_[hidden])
Date: 2009-11-19 16:47:50

> Tom Brinkman <reportbase <at> gmail.com> writes:
> ...
> There are many ways to abstract a solution and build an interface around it.
> Boost should encourage a diversity of approaches.

Yes, it sounds very uplifting and inspiring... and I would agree with that
whole-heartedly... if I considered Boost merely the place of purely academic
exercise. For many "average" programmers though the Boost libs is first and
foremost a product that they want to *use* uniformly throughout a project, many
projects. In that light from the commercial deployment and project management
points of view having 2 (or worse -- plethora of) functionally-similar
facilities readily available is a nightmare as some will end up using one
facility and some others will prefer another facility. Shared knowledge is
fragmented (people rarely have time and capacity to know all), code reviews,
maintenance are difficult, the ultimate product looks unprofessional due to
inconsistencies (in case of logging configurations, formats, destinations will
be different). It's not an imaginary situation -- our project for various
reasons ended up using 3 logging facilities with the very real problems
described above. Rectifying the problem now is an expensive and tiring exercise.

Do not get me wrong. I am all for creativity, innovation and healthy competition
of ideas. However, all that does not have to be dumped onto the user to decide
-- users often have no time, capacity, qualifications, freedom to make an
educated choice. More so, users often *want* the gurus (and the level of the
Boost community is most certainly considerably higher than the average) to make
that educated choice for them. It's like one going to a financial planner for
help and the planner dumping all the options on to that poor soul. Now that poor
customer/user has to be a financial planner himself to make an educated choice.

Just my 2c obviously.
V.