Re: [boost] [http] Boost.Http formal review is finished

Subject: Re: [boost] [http] Boost.Http formal review is finished
From: Niall Douglas (s_sourceforge_at_[hidden])
Date: 2015-08-17 17:15:48

On 17 Aug 2015 at 8:09, Robert Ramey wrote:

> To me it's very unfortunate that so much effort has had to be expended 
> by a library author to produce a library that is not accepted.  It's 
> also unfortunate that so many reviewers need to spend this much time to 
> dig up enough information to reach this consensus.  This illustrates my 
> motivation behind the design of the boost library incubator.  Imagine an 
> alternate scenario.
> 
> a) Vinicius submits his library to the incubator.  He did this exactly 
> as requested and fulfilled all the requirements listed in the incubator. 
> I don't think he found the process onerous in anyway.  So far so good.
> 
> b) One person commented on his submission and Vinicius replied. So far 
> so good.
> 
> c) Now we come up with the review and only then do we get a really 
> serious look at the library in all it's aspects.  The criticism is 
> constructive, but it's too late to change the submission.
> 
> d) Had Vinicius gotten this feedback earlier, the submission would have 
> been different or perhaps not even reviewed at all.

In fairness, Vinicius had substantial feedback privately sent to him 
long before the review by at least three people I know of (including 
myself). I explicitly did not post my feedback onto the incubator 
because I felt it was inappropriate given the development state of 
the library at that time.

I think the Incubator is appropriate for libraries which have matured 
and are not undergoing continuing rapid development. Otherwise 
comments placed there are automatically out of date and misleading 
and could even been seen as an unwarranted permanent black mark 
uneraseable from Google.

Personally speaking, I've always wished that after 500 github commits 
an Incubator comment would be deleted. I appreciate there is a fair 
bit of complexity implementing that automatically however.

> e) Had people started to download the library, run the tests and try to 
> use it in their own code a lot of information would have come out much 
> earlier.  This information would have been helpful to everyone involved. 
>   This didn't happen.  Or at least, not that I know of.  Neither the 
> incubator nor github keep statistics on library downloads. I does keep 
> statistics on views of the library page.  These statistics can be 
> displayed via the "Display Statistics" button on the library page.  They 
> show 701 pages views in the last 90 days.

I think no one uses a proposed Boost library really until it goes for 
review unless your name is Eric Niebler or someone equally famous, 
and even then I remember Eric telling me he reckoned no more than 50 
people are really looking at Ranges in any depth. I think that's 
entirely the whole point of the Boost review really: expert eyeballs.

FYI I know of about seven people who have ever even tried AFIO in 30 
months. It's too niche, though when you see my brand new workshop 
tutorial with benchmarks on Friday I think that might radically 
change :).

Niall

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