Re: [boost] proposed new library "histogram"

Subject: Re: [boost] proposed new library "histogram"
From: Klemens Morgenstern (klemens.morgenstern_at_[hidden])
Date: 2016-05-05 03:21:26

Am 05.05.2016 um 00:21 schrieb Hans Dembinski:
> Hi everybody,
>
> I recently added a new library called "histogram" to the Boost
> Incubator. I would like to advertise it a little here in the hope to
> find a person interested in reviewing it. I hope that shameless
> self-advertisement is not going against some rule of this list, but I am
> sure you will let me know.

Well no, that's part of the purpose of the mailing list. Though be 
prepared, that you may get very harsh criticism here.

> My background is in analysis of big data in the fields of particle
> physics and astroparticle physics. Boost is very popular among my peers,
> since it is a free, high-quality, rich, and very well maintained
> collection of libraries. There is a growing number of tools to do
> statistical analysis in Boost and I think this project would fit in
> nicely, and fill a gap. We work with histograms a lot, so that's why my
> interest came from.
>

All this sound quite interesting. I took a look at your documentation 
and the tests and I have to say: I have no clue what this library does. 
That is, yes, it helps you to write histograms, surce, but how does that 
look? This might be obvious for you as the developer, but for me it's 
completely unclear - maybe you can enhance your examples by providing 
the actually generated output.
Because if you want interesent in your library you need people to have a 
clue what you're talking about. That does not mean, that you need to 
give every detail, but to have an overview and an basic idea would be nice.

> I am a senior programmer in C++ and Python with 10 years of experience.
> Guiding development through code reviews and tickets, as well as taking
> on responsibility for continuous maintenance, are natural for me.
> Naturally, I am willing to commit free time to maintain the project
> should it be accepted, and do my share of the work in this community.
>
> I put a lot of thought and effort into this project, the rationale and
> my design choices are explained in the documentation, which I wrote
> according to the advice given at the Boost Incubator website. The
> project is feature complete from my side. What it needs now is the input
> from the Boost community to round off possible edges and to make the
> interface rich enough for everybody. I am good at considering the user
> perspective, but I cannot anticipate everyone's needs.

Is it pure C++03? Because (just from looking into it) it seems a lot of 
stuff in histrogramm.hpp could be done with templates, i.e. without 
marcos. But that's just my impression. Also things like 
move-constructors seem to be missing, which would make a lot of sense 
for a histogram. I would also use std::array instead of C-Arrays, etc..

Also: I think you will still need to provide bjam files, because that's 
still the way boost is built (though there has been lively discussion 
about cmake).

>
> In case you got interested, here are the links:
>
> Incubator link:
>
> http://rrsd.com/blincubator.com/bi_library/histogram-2/?gform_post_id=1582
>
> github link:
>
> https://github.com/HDembinski/histogram
>
> Best regards,
>
> Hans
>
>
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