[boost] Demand for Boost libraries - was Math tools polynomial enhancements

Subject: [boost] Demand for Boost libraries - was Math tools polynomial enhancements
From: Robert Ramey (ramey_at_[hidden])
Date: 2015-10-31 12:10:55

On 10/31/15 4:50 AM, John Maddock wrote:

> Also intrigued, but also have other things to do.... would be easy for
> this to feature creep into a compile-time algebra library!

I think it would be hard to keep out.  Also I think it would be very 
difficult to keep it from growing.

I'm actually more concerned about the demand for such a thing.  I think 
it's very compelling.  But as a member of the Program Committee for 
CPPcon 2015 I was very much struck by the lack of interest in topics 
related to mathematics and mathematical thinking.  In particular there 
was a proposal for Algorithmic Differentiation implemented via TMP.  In 
spite of strong advocacy on my part, other committee members were 
convinced that it was too advanced mathematically for the expected 
attendees.  They might well have been right - if they were - it's even 
more disturbing to me.

One thing that we really, really, really need in Boost is better 
feedback on which libraries are actually used and how much they are 
used.  I feel like we're spending a lot of time developing stuff that 
few if any programmers actually find useful. Sometimes they're right and 
the ideas just aren't that useful and other times they're wrong and 
they're just don't get it.

This goes double for the C++ committee. How is it that years of effort 
and discussion and development can be invested in "Concepts" while 
getting Boost authors to include "concepts" in their documentation and 
boost concept checking in their code is like pulling teeth.

I feel like I'm really missing something.

Robert Ramey