Re: [boost] Thoughts on Boost v2

Subject: Re: [boost] Thoughts on Boost v2
From: Bjorn Reese (breese_at_[hidden])
Date: 2014-05-17 08:54:15

On 05/16/2014 07:10 PM, Niall Douglas wrote:

> Thoughts?

With over one hundred libraries, Boost is also facing a scalability
problem. As nobody can be an expert on everything, it is only natural
that some kind of specialization, and therefore fragmentation, will
take place. This is already the case with the project-specific
mailing-lists.

ISO C++ is facing the same problem, and has introduced study groups
to focus on specific domains. Maybe we should do something similar.

What I am proposing is not the project-specific mailing-lists (although
some of these could probably be adapted for the purpose), but rather
domain-specific fora, where we can experiment with various topics
related to the domain before proposing libraries for Boost. These fora
should allow competing designs to develop before settling on specific
ones (unlike the current project-specific mailing-lists that are build
around a specific library.)

One example could be network programming. Boost has a splendid socket
API in Asio, but no libraries that utilizes this. A Boost network
study group could look into higher level components, such as HTTP
frameworks, device discovery (ZeroConf), messaging middleware, RPC
frameworks, and so on.

Christopher mentioned another viable domain, namely real-time /
embedded systems. There has even been voices on the std-discussion
mailing-list suggesting a C++ SG for embedded programming.