Re: [text] [review] Text formal review result

From: Edward Diener (eldiener_at_[hidden])
Date: 2020-06-28 16:46:19

On 6/28/2020 12:16 PM, Jeff Garland via Boost wrote:
> On Sat, Jun 27, 2020 at 9:22 PM Edward Diener via Boost <
> boost_at_[hidden]> wrote:
> 
>> On 6/27/2020 1:55 PM, Ville Voutilainen via Boost wrote:
>>> On Sat, 27 Jun 2020 at 18:48, Edward Diener via Boost
>>> <boost_at_[hidden]> wrote:
>>>> You have raised a bunch of hackles here. The LEWG, along with all other
>>>> C++ standard committees, seems to me so much less open to debate than
>>>> Boost is that it is hard to know what to say about your assertion that
>>>> "This list is not very welcoming". Nor can anything ever be found out
>>>> from the C++ standards committee why such and such was accepted or
>>>> rejected, or what the arguments were about after the fact.
>>>
>>> Have you tried asking a committee member, or just asking on
>> std-discussion?
>>> It also seems to me that there tends to be a multitude of meeting trip
>> reports
>>> that cover why such and such was accepted or rejected.
>>
>> I do not find that the reasons why a proposal is accepted or rejected,
>> as well as the differing opinions of those reviewing the proposal, are
>> available for C++ Standard committees. Yet anyone can search Boost
>>
> archives for discussions regarding a library submitted to Boost, since
>> they are all part of the Boost developer mailing list. Therefore while I
>> respect the expertise of those on the various C++ standard committees,
>> and while I understand that those who are on the various C++ standard
>> committees change over time, the lack of historical information
>>
> 
> I guess I don't see this as generally the case wrt specific proposals.
> Most papers, tend to maintain a running history of relevant decisions and
> that's usually the best source of what transpired.  Look at one of mine --
> on page 2 there there's a summary related to LEWGI and SG10 feedback.
> Section 6 goes into more detail on a number of these. Authors do this to
> help remind themselves and help committee members (meaning cut down
> rediscussion of already hashed thru points) that aren't able to be in every
> single discussion of the paper.  To me this is actually better than trying
> to search the mailing list.
> 
> http://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg21/docs/papers/2019/p1750r1.pdf

My point is that the history of what is said about a proposal by those 
either voting to accept or reject a proposal is not available in any 
form unless it is added to the proposal itself by someone. In your link 
I do not see the discussion about acceptance or rejection of the 
proposal by anyone, and if I look up most any given proposal, going back 
nnnn years ago I see nothing in the proposal itself explaining why it 
was accepted or rejected. Is it really too much to ask that the C++ 
standards committee keep a record of the discussion for a given proposal 
which tells why a proposal is accepted to rejected ?

I became concerned about this not as just a theoretical problem because 
an idea I had which I thought would improve C++ was proposed in an even 
better way 17 years ago and rejected, and yet there is zero information 
why the proposal was rejected. But I am trying not to focus on my idea 
but on the general issue that the reasons a proposal are accepted or 
rejected by the C++ standards committee is completely lost to anyone who 
was not there at the time when the proposal was "debated". I found this 
very poor in an age of digital information.