Re: [boost] [peer review queue tardiness] [was Cleaning out the Boost review queue] Review Queue member requirements

Subject: Re: [boost] [peer review queue tardiness] [was Cleaning out the Boost review queue] Review Queue member requirements
From: Niall Douglas (s_sourceforge_at_[hidden])
Date: 2015-04-02 13:37:59

On 2 Apr 2015 at 7:57, Robert Ramey wrote:

> Naturally I'm disappointed that so far the site has so far only garnered
> a whopping two reviews.  But as should be apparent, I'm not 
> giving up on this until I'm successful.  So in order to save myself,
> everyone else even more aggravation, as well as diminished wasted
> space on this list, I urge everyone who has knowledge and/or 
> interest in some library on the incubator to write a review and
> encourage other parties to do the same. 

I'm sure you remember I want most of the scores to be generated by 
automated scripts on a daily basis. That tightens the feedback loop 
between each commit improving the code and its ranking to optimal.

Not that I have any problem with some scores being manual, _so_ 
_long_ as those expire after let's say 250 commits reaching master 
branch.

> > I also think that Boost 2.0 should be about being a single stop 
> > portal for "Boost quality" libraries rather than Boost libraries. I 
> > was recently working with eggs.variant for example, and that is Boost 
> > quality written to Boost guidelines and yet I understand there is 
> > zero interest in it entering Boost, despite it being superior to 
> > Boost.Variant in almost every way. Same goes for HPX and plenty more.
> 
> LOL -  it should be pretty apparent that this is the goal of the incubator.
> Please don't let the cat out the bag.  There will be a HUGE announcement
> at C++Now.

I am as usual completely out of the loop Robert.

> > Anyway, I'll elaborate during the Boost 2.0 talk.
> 
> Hey - I thought I was giving this talk !

You are. And you'll see what I'll say as soon as you show me what 
you'll say. I was hoping we'd both be fully preaware of what the 
other will say, that should save time for everybody. My elaboration 
is only about five slides, and will only contest what I disagree with 
your main presentation in a factual fashion, not argumentative.

> > What would be really great is if the formal review schedule at 
> > http://www.boost.org/community/review_schedule.html could be enhanced 
> > to also show the same traffic light matrix of "Boost readiness" of 
> > its entrants. 
> 
> Tweaks of this nature are relatively easy to add to the incubator
> should some consensus occur.

As a proof of concept I think yes. It is just web form => database => 
HTML page, very 1990s web. Though as I'm sure you'll agree it's far 
harder than it should be with Wordpress.

As a test bot driven system whereby I mean a v2 of the existing test 
regression results submission system, it's nowhere close. A full fat 
system would calculate hundreds of scores per commit. Those scores 
need to aggregate into traffic lights on a dashboard in a fair 
representation way that has consensus behind it. Every year a 
stakeholder analysis needs to happen to figure out a new set of 
equations for the rankings so there is continual improvement.

Quite bluntly, I don't think Wordpress is up to it Robert. I actually 
don't think Wordpress is up to the current incubator either, it's the 
wrong CMS for the task at hand.

> > Actually, I'd personally like such a traffic light 
> > matrix for *all* Boost libraries, because it would illuminate just 
> > how badly maintained some of them are (and hopefully encourage their 
> > timely removal).
> 
> You're preaching to the choir here.  There's lots of fertile ground here.

We are consistently moving closer to a common position no doubt. The 
main technical differences are on scalability. I essentially want as 
little human involvement as possible so things really can scale out. 
I think you think that loses the whole point of Boost - the human 
review.

> One thing I would like to see right now would be for review wizard 
> (maybe after running it by the steering committee or other influential
> boosters) to impose the requirement that any library to be reviewed be 
> on the incubator.  This would be the first official connection between Boost
> itself and the incubator. I think the time is right for this now.

I think reviews on the incubator are unworkable. Wordpress is the 
wrong tool for discussing code.

Github's per line and per commit discussion system is considerably 
better. As I've suggested before, some AJAX which asks github for all 
the comments and aggregates them onto the incubator makes enormous 
sense.

Someone has to write that though, and it's not a trivial bit of work. 
At least 200 hours to write something which (a) displays the comments 
coherently with code expansion (b) doesn't overload the github api 
(i.e. caches locally) and (c) allows two way commenting, so either 
you can comment on github or on the incubator and comments appear on 
both.

And that 200 hours doesn't include a voting system. A custom view of 
github source code with a custom commenting and ranking system is 
possible, but now you're talking 500 hours at least.

Niall

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