[boost] [http] Formal review of Boost.Http

Subject: [boost] [http] Formal review of Boost.Http
From: Bjorn Reese (breese_at_[hidden])
Date: 2015-08-07 03:08:20

Dear Boost and ASIO communities.

The formal review of Vinícius dos Santos Oliveira's Boost.Http library
starts today, August 7th and ends on Sunday August 16th.

Boost.Http is designed for various forms of modern HTTP interaction,
from normal HTTP request, over HTTP chunking and pipelining, to
upgrading to other web protocols like WebSocket. This library builds
on top of Boost.ASIO, and follows the threading model of ASIO.

The two basic building-blocks are http::socket, which is socket that
talks HTTP, and http::message with contains HTTP meta-data and body
information. You can use these building-blocks to build a HTTP server
that fits your exact needs; for instance, an embedded HTTP server for
a ReST API. Boost.Http comes with a light-weight HTTP server and a
static file server.

Currently, Boost.Http is limited to server-side interaction, but the
design principles used extends to client-side as well.

Boost.Http was originally developed as part of GSoC 2014 and Vinícius
has continued to develop and improve the library since then.

The documentation can be found here:

   http://boostgsoc14.github.io/boost.http/

The source code can be found here:

   https://github.com/BoostGSoC14/boost.http

The source code is build using CMake, but Boost.Build is in the pipeline
(already done for documentation.)

Please answer the following questions:

  1. Should Boost.Http be accepted into Boost? Please state all
     conditions for acceptance explicity.

  2. What is your evaluation of the design?

  3. What is your evaluation of the implementation?

  4. What is your evaluation of the documentation?

  5. What is your evaluation of the potential usefulness of the library?

  6. Did you try to use the library? With what compiler? Did you have
     any problems?

  7. How much effort did you put into your evaluation? A glance? A quick
     reading? In-depth study?

  8. Are you knowledgeable about the problem domain?