Re: [boost] The problems with Boost development

Subject: Re: [boost] The problems with Boost development
From: Rob Riggs (rob_at_[hidden])
Date: 2010-03-26 19:48:37

On 03/19/2010 02:14 AM, Vladimir Prus wrote:
> It seems to be important, right now, to discuss whether this problems are real,
> and what problems are most important. So, I would like to ask that everybody
> who is somehow involved in *development* -- whether in writing code, triaging bugs,
> sending patches, or managing thing, list three most important problems with Boost now.
> Please keep the items to a sentence or two, so that we can easily collect the
> problems.
>
>    
As a potential contributor, here are my main stumbling blocks:

1. Jam -- I hate it with a passion.  Boost is the only software I 
interact with that uses it.  I have had to learn imake, make, autoconf, 
cmake, scons, and others.  I resent having to learn yet another obtuse 
build system.
2. Unmaintained code.  I run into bugs that were reported in Trac a 
while ago -- and Trac even contain patches for the fix.  And feature 
enhancements to such code is impossible.
3. Keeping up with the mailing list.  The traffic on the mailing list is 
way too high keep up with on a regular basis.

With that said, I think it is important to know also what Boost gets right.

1. There is some control over what gets in.
2. The software is generally of high quality.
3. The documentation and automated tests are very good.

Regards,

Rob