Re: Something off my chest about Boost

From: Hans Dembinski (hans.dembinski_at_[hidden])
Date: 2019-07-17 15:25:41

> On 16. Jul 2019, at 22:09, Maarten Verhage via Boost <boost_at_[hidden]> wrote:
> 
> To make Boost more accessible to people I believe Boost should ask more on this from current and new library authors.

Boost.Histogram was added just recently, and the documentation was thoroughly checked in the review when I submitted it. Documentation is essential for the reviewers, too, because they usually look at the library for the first time and need to figure out how to use it based on the documentation (or by looking into the code, but if you need to look into the code to figure things out, the documentation has failed already).

It is difficult to compare docs and source code, but the Boost.Histogram docs have 19023 words, and the source code has 28844 "words". Roughly, the docs make up 40 % of the library, and that although Boost.Histogram is a "simple" library with a narrow application domain (not so narrow when you look more closely, because of how general it is).

As other have said, it is generally a good idea to write an issue for the particular library in question and - even better - submit a pull request. Github makes contributing easier than ever before.

Best regards,
Hans