Re: [boost] [afio] Formal review of Boost.AFIO

Subject: Re: [boost] [afio] Formal review of Boost.AFIO
From: Glen Fernandes (glen.fernandes_at_[hidden])
Date: 2015-08-30 19:46:20

On Sun, Aug 30, 2015, Gruenke,Matt wrote:
> This obviously isn't a proper review, and shouldn't be counted as such.
> Rather, I pose a question to other reviewers: for how many of you does
> this actually solve a problem you've faced or anticipate?  For me, the
> answer is "no".  Otherwise, I'd invest further time in a proper review.

This is exactly what I feel. The answer is "no" for me too. This is
also the reason why I haven't submitted a formal review.

I was interested in Boost having an asynchronous file I/O library and
was looking forward to reviewing AFIO because of all the discussion on
the list previously about performance. What I was expecting was also a
portable abstraction over platform specific APIs like KAIO or
overlapped I/O.

I'm a big fan of libraries that challenge expectations: I wouldn't
object to hearing "This is the <library> that you need, not the
<library> that you want". In fact that notion is exciting. There was
just nothing exciting about AFIO to me.

I can't answer the question "Does anyone else need AFIO?" with any
degree of confidence. Niall has said there is a market for AFIO, but
that it is very niche and not well represented in the Boost community.

Best,
Glen