Re: [boost] Another variant type (was: [peer review queue tardiness] [was Cleaning out the Boost review queue] Review Queue mem

Subject: Re: [boost] Another variant type (was: [peer review queue tardiness] [was Cleaning out the Boost review queue] Review Queue mem
From: Eric Niebler (eniebler_at_[hidden])
Date: 2015-04-02 20:33:38

On 4/2/2015 2:17 PM, Gonzalo BG wrote:
> I'll briefly chime in to state that I have been using Eric Niebler's
> tagged_variant for a couple of months now and am very happy with it, it
> comes with range-v3:
> 
> https://github.com/ericniebler/range-v3/blob/master/include/range/v3/utility/variant.hpp
> 
> (note: the utility folder of range-v3 is full of true gems)

FWIW, I consider it usable, but not fully baked.

I'd like to respond to this:

On 4/2/2015 11:06 AM, Niall Douglas wrote:
> These endless discussions about how best to implement Boost's future
> wouldn't be happening if every top tier new C++ library was always
> assumed de facto by its author to eventually be destined for Boost.
> The fact that so many top tier authors, including so many formerly
> with a big presence here, no longer bother with Boost I think speaks
> volumes about what's gone wrong here with how library quality is
> assessed here.

Speaking strictly for myself here: the reason I haven't pushed to get my
recent open source contributions into Boost is not because I consider my
code of higher quality. If anything it's quite the opposite. Getting a
library into Boost is so daunting and time-consuming that -- at least
for the work I'm doing these days -- I just don't have the time. It
pains me to say that. I don't have the time to produce Boost-quality
documentation and to exhaustively test everything. Concepts are coming.
It's not hard to see that the STL will need a ground-up rewrite. I
needed to get on the Concepts train, and it was going to pull out of the
station with or without me. It would take half a year to make range-v3
Boost-worthy. By that time, I'd have missed my chance to get ranges
baked in from day 1.

Maybe that speaks to Boost's review process, but it doesn't speak to the
quality of Boost's code, which I consider very high.

I realize that doing an end-run around Boost to get ranges in the
standard is deflating for everybody who has worked to make Boost what it
is. That includes me.

FWIW, if someone were to volunteer to polish the docs and tests and run
it through a review, I'd be overjoyed to see range-v3 in Boost. Ditto
for Meta.

-- 
Eric Niebler
Boost.org
http://www.boost.org