Re: [boost] Boost is supposed to serve *the entire C++ community; it isn't Boost's goal to serve Boost's community*

Subject: Re: [boost] Boost is supposed to serve *the entire C++ community; it isn't Boost's goal to serve Boost's community*
From: Niall Douglas (s_sourceforge_at_[hidden])
Date: 2016-05-19 05:17:39

On 17 May 2016 at 19:39, Edward Diener wrote:

> > But I'll freely admit I have given up on trying to make any
> > substantial changes to Boost. I prototyped as I said I would a
> > Boost-lite transition layer suitable for a clean Boost fork which I'm
> > using in all my own code. Nobody was interested.
> 
> Maybe no one was interested because no one knows what you are talking about.

This I think is inaccurate except maybe for your good self 
personally.

I presented a plan for how to technically transition to a C++ 14 only 
Boost 2.0 at my C++ Now 2015 presentation:

https://goo.gl/VFFXUl

The talk was well attended, and by much of the more senior Boost 
community members.

I got the impression everyone understood well what was being 
proposed. Understanding was not the issue. Agreement with forking 
Boost into a C++ 14 only edition was the issue.

> > The community
> > *likes* things just the way they are: serving the Boost community,
> > and to hell with the entire C++ community. A shame, and a waste, and
> > I suspect in the long term self defeating.
> 
> Boost consists of about 130 different libraries. I venture to guess that 
> there is not a single library author of those 130 different libraries 
> that wouldn't like to see his library used more by the C++ community. 
> But why you think that Boost library authors write only for other Boost 
> library authors rather than for any C++ programmer is something you need 
> to explain in specific terms. Just making that claim does not explain 
> anything.

The C++ 14 only libraries contributed to date are clearly written 
first for C++ not Boost. They are the future we should be proactively 
encouraging into a new clean ground up redesigned fork of Boost, a 
Boost 2.0, instead of corralling them into legacy and outdated 
packaging, build, design, documentation and idioms out of some 
misguided desire for serving the legacy Boost usership before that of 
the wider C++ community.

Niall

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