Re: [boost] Boost summer of formal reviews

Subject: Re: [boost] Boost summer of formal reviews
From: Borislav Stanimirov (b.stanimirov_at_[hidden])
Date: 2014-03-11 16:20:22

On 11.3.2014 г. 21:47 ч., Niall Douglas wrote:
> On 11 Mar 2014 at 17:57, Borislav Stanimirov wrote:
>> * After a library passes the automated tests, it just becomes a part of
>> boost. _BUT!_ It does so in the namespace boost::bleeding_edge. Have a
>> disclaimer that bleeding_edge libraries haven't passed a formal review
>> yet. Still, even with such a disclaimer, they would be exposed to the
>> public, and more people would be encouraged to try them.
>
> I would be wary to diminishing the Boost brand by distributing
> non-peer reviewed libraries in the main distro. I wouldn't oppose a
> secondary "add on" distro containing libraries in the review queue
> which have passed the metrics in my previous post, but I still think
> that passing peer review is what makes Boost Boost. If you don't pass
> peer review, you can't say you're a Boost library.
>

That seems like a great idea, and it's a great way of having more 
exposure for the libraries that are waiting for a review. Helping them 
to find more early adopters, track down issues and ultimately becoming 
more useful and worthy of a review. I (and I'm sure many of the people 
here) know lots of people that use Boost, follow the news and are 
experts in some of the libraries, but hardly any of them has even heard 
about AFIO. Almost none of them knew about Log until it became an 
official part of the library. And as I understand Log had a fairly big 
user base even before it was officially in Boost.

How could we go about having such an add-on distro?

>> * To get out of the bleeding_edge namespace, a library needs to either
>> receive a formal review (in the format formal reviews are made now), or
>> demonstrate its use in several real-life working projects (independent
>> from the author).
>
> To get a willing peer review manager a library already needs to
> become popular enough, so we already have that too. For example, not
> enough people are using AFIO, therefore no one wants to peer review
> manage it, therefore I agree AFIO should not enter Boost until it is
> popular enough - after all, no one may be using it because it has an
> awful unintuitive design irrespective of technical merit :) Equally,
> it simply may be a useless library and solves no real problem,
> another good reason it should not enter Boost.
>

I could say the same thing about my library. But the thing is while the 
gist of AFIO can be explained in a single sentence (it's in the 
library's name), that cannot be said about Mixin. Personally, I have no 
idea how to find users for it, especially since it seems like even if it 
does turn out to be useful for many people, it will be in the sense of 
something they didn't realize they needed until they gave it a shot.

-- Borislav