Re: [boost] Thoughts on Boost v2

Subject: Re: [boost] Thoughts on Boost v2
From: Hartmut Kaiser (hartmut.kaiser_at_[hidden])
Date: 2014-05-17 12:39:49

John,

> > Well, let us iterate the libraries which were presented this C++ Now
> > conference which are not in Boost and have no (to my knowledge)
> > intention to enter Boost. Some of these may not be C++11, it was hard
> > to tell from the talk description, but a majority were:
> >
> 
> > * Octopus
>
> Unable to find that one.

It's here: https://github.com/STEllAR-GROUP/octopus. However, it's currently
not in good shape as it relies on some older version of HPX.
 
> > * HPX
> 
>  From a well known Booster, depends on Boost and is Boost-licenced.
> Let's hope we see it here soon, although it looks like it may still be
> experimental?

HPX (https://github.com/STEllAR-GROUP/hpx) can be seen as a maturing
experiment :-P (HPX gains traction as it now can be used as a backend for
Boost.Odeint and Joel Falcou's NT2, using it as the backend RTS for OpenMP,
MPI, and OpenCL is in the works, other systems are under consideration to be
supported)

In order to be usable on real machines out there (administrators of
supercomputers are notoriously conservative) HPX is written using C++03 with
some C++11 features (mainly rvalue refs and move semantics) as supported by
a reasonable set of compilers (gcc >= 4.4.5, VS2012, etc.). It heavily
relies on Boost where the implementation is not sufficient or adds its own
replacements where needed (movable/serializable tuple, function, bind, any,
etc.).

However, all of HPX's API is closely aligned with C++11, where possible,
which clearly simplifies adoption.

In any event, we don't expect HPX as a whole to be considered for Boost any
time soon for 2 reasons: a) it is written using C++03 (for the time being,
might change as compilers catch up) and more importantly b) it is a library
consisting of many sub-libraries itself (threading, networking, algorithms,
data structures, serialization, facilities for distributed computing, etc.)
and we don't have the manpower to extract pieces which could be submitted to
Boost. 

However, we'd welcome interested developers to extract what looks
interesting and submit it as their own.

> Well it would be nice of some of those library authors could chime in
> with their thoughts, otherwise we don't really know one way or another?

HTH
Regards Hartmut
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