Re: [boost] Is Boost dead? [Re: Anyone is interested in being review manager of ‘Application’?]

Subject: Re: [boost] Is Boost dead? [Re: Anyone is interested in being review manager of ‘Application’?]
From: Roland Bock (rbock_at_[hidden])
Date: 2014-05-10 06:25:46

On 2014-05-08 22:24, Christophe Henry wrote:
>>> For example, boost-users has a posting rate nearly a third
>>> that of before 2011.
>
>> Regarding this, my personal (weakly substantiated) perception is that
>> people are migrating to sexier forums such as stackoverflow to get
>> the same help.
>> For instance, 5-6 years back I could get about 1 question a week
>> about Boost.MultiIndex on the users list.
>> Now it's like 1 question every 3 months here, but 1-2 a week in
>> stackoverflow instead. Blame the crude interface a mailing list
>> provides, registration entry barriers etc.
>
>> As for the decline in the dev list, it looks more serious and there's
>> no migration theory that could mitigate it. Also, I feel like the
>> maturity level of discussions has fallen :-(
>>
>> Joaquín M López Muñoz
>> Telefónica
>
> Frankly I don't see this that negative, at least not yet. Maybe the
> decrease of volume is caused by the fact that libraries most people
> were using are now part of the STL?
I know that's true for me, at least..
> I consider this might change as soon as the mental barrier we're
> having about writing C++11/14 only libraries goes and new cool
> libraries are written using the new language features.
> I'll try to do just this next week at CppNow.
Best of luck!

With boost 1.x based on and improving C++98/03, maybe it is time for
boost 2.x, based on C++11/14 (I would prefer C++14 incl Concepts Lite)?

This would allow for two things:

  * boost-1.x could carry on maintaining support for C++98/03, old
    compilers etc, which was and is awesome
  * boost-2.x could regain the truly pioneering spirit of boost, aiming
    for the next big changes in the language

>
> Maybe we also need new people to shake the tree and take an active
> part to replace those who are now less active.
If some core libraries were dropping C++03 support in boost 2.x, I think
this replacement process could be sped up a lot.

Regards,

Roland