Re: [boost] Respecting a projects toolchain decisions (was Re: [context] new version - support for Win64)

Subject: Re: [boost] Respecting a projects toolchain decisions (was Re: [context] new version - support for Win64)
From: Edward Diener (eldiener_at_[hidden])
Date: 2010-12-28 09:02:04

On 12/27/2010 11:42 PM, Dean Michael Berris wrote:
> On Tue, Dec 28, 2010 at 4:05 AM, Vladimir Prus
>> I would suggest you post separately about those proposals. I think that
>> the current review process is actually good. It does not prevent anybody
>> from using a proposed library in practice and provide real-world feedback.
>> However, it encourages relatively deep look -- something that might not
>> happen during production use.
>>
>
> Sure, that's the plan -- I'd really write up a proposal that has more
> detail and concrete steps to take. What I wrote earlier was a high
> level view of the plan, which until now is still brewing in my head.
> ;)
>
> About the review process, the problem with the time limit that I see
> is the amount of work required to throughly look at a library usually
> doesn't fit in one week. And then the really deeper looks require
> quite a bit of discussion to clarify points and make sure that the
> reviewer and the library author(s) get to respond to questions and/or
> gather feedback regarding the implementation. By making the review
> process more of a collaborative development process instead of an "I'm
> finished, is it good enough?" thing, you can involve more people and
> encourage community building around your library.

I agree with you that the time limit for most reviews is too narrow. It 
barely leaves time for someone to investigate a library and write a good 
review. I believe any review should last a month or more. At the same 
time I do not see why more than one review can not go on at any time. If 
each review lasted a month minimum, perhaps as long as two months, but a 
number of reviews were going on at the same time, then possible Boost 
libraries would not languish in the queue so long.

I do not however see reviews as a collaborative development process. I 
dislike your notion of software development as a community process. 
Software design is almost always an individual conception and no amount 
of community involvement is going to change that. Of course a developer 
can be influenced by the comments of others about the particulars of a 
software library. But I can never believe that a community of people can 
effectively design a software library no matter what proof you may want 
to try to bring from other environments like Linux and other open source 
projects.