Re: [boost] Boost Incubator Status Report

Subject: Re: [boost] Boost Incubator Status Report
From: Robert Ramey (ramey_at_[hidden])
Date: 2014-11-07 11:23:06

Vladimir Prus-3 wrote
> it's just we see that formal reviews are not as well-attended as before,
> and one way to improve
> might be to make participation easier.

I've been concerned about the low attendance in the formal review process
for years. (Is Boost Broken? BoostCon 2010?).  The motivation behind the
design of the incubator is to "make participation easier" by decoupling the
preparation of the review from a specific 1-2 week time frame.  It was also
specifically designed to not alter the actual Boot Review process.  So far,
it has only garnered one "pre-review" so one could say it's a failure.  But
I'm not done yet.  I'm very stubborn - I made 27 versions of the
serialization library (with one formal review which rejected it.  I'm not
done yet here either.  There wiil be incremental changes in the Boost
Library Incubator implementation to encourage more reviews.

The original question on this thread was really about considering a change
in the methodology of the formal review process.  This might be an
interesting question, but it is totally orthogonal to anything in the Boost
Incubator.  The Boost Incubator doesn't attempt to change any boost policies
- just make the agreed upon policies better.  Narrowing the focus and scope
in this way is very important.

a) it keeps the incubator implementable
b) It means that a failure in the incubator doesn't ripple over into boost
policies itself.  It just means that the incubator has to evolve.  That is
the incubator is dependent upon boost - but it will never be the other way
around.
c) It permits me to impose one persons (hopefully) logically consistent,
sharply focused concept on the design and implementation of the incubator. 
The boost community and/or other programmers are then free to accept, reject
or criticize it.  This is a reflection of how boost works - and to some
extent how C++ works. 

So anyone is free to criticize it, offer suggestions, explanations why it's
not progressing more, etc.....  But suggestions for improvement of the boost
process belong in boost - not in the incubator.  Yours truly, is but a
humble servant of Boost.

Robert Ramey

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