Re: [boost] Original STL Library Documentation has been recovered and is now safe forever.

Subject: Re: [boost] Original STL Library Documentation has been recovered and is now safe forever.
From: Robert Jones (robertgbjones_at_[hidden])
Date: 2018-09-02 21:11:23

On 2 September 2018 at 17:26, Robert Ramey via Boost <boost_at_[hidden]>
wrote:

>
> LOL - of course it should be done by boost.  But who needs the hassle of
> proposing it on the list and going through endless discussion about it
> should be placed on the website, who is going to do it, how much better if
> would be if ..., arguments that it's outdated, etc. etc. ... ad infinitem.
>
>
Hi Robert

Firstly thanks for recovering these documents, it is obviously better that
somebody does than that nobody does.

However in answer to your other point you have  in effect kicked the can
down the road! There will come a time when your site becomes
defunct and (please forgive me for being indelicate), so will you. That is
why (among other reasons) these things should be done as a community
in preference to an individual. The hassle of gaining consensus for
something which is self-evident is the price we all pay for a community.

To be fair this is a bigger problem than you, or I, or Boost. In the bowels
of the Palace of Westminster are scrolls of legislation dating back
hundreds of years, still readable, still "available" in some sense. At the
same time digital archives from just twenty years ago are unreadable
either from decay or unavailability of the software and hardware of the era
to read them. On a personal level I have a modest DVD collection
but no longer have a DVD player, and I'm sure this not uncommon. So maybe
we should write the SGI documentation on vellum and stash it in the
basement! Goodness knows what future historians will make of that.

Kind Regards

Rob.