Re: Revitalization

From: Robert Jones (robertgbjones_at_[hidden])
Date: 2022-12-04 19:06:30

On Sat, 3 Dec 2022 at 02:03, David Sankel via Boost <boost_at_[hidden]>
wrote:

>
> I'm interested to hear your opinions as to what happened over that time
>
>
Some thoughts from no one special, just a jobbing craftsman scraping a
living...

I've used Boost for quite a while, I think 1.28.0 was my first download. At
that time the Standard Library
was a bit sparse, so Boost was the only way to gain certain features and
facilities, if you didn't want to
roll your own. In my mind it was a thing of awesome wonder, even more so
when I read Karlsson's book and
understood a little of how it was done behind the curtain. Kinda taught me
C++ craftsmanship. Dimov's
Bind library just blew me away!

Then the language and standard library started evolving.

Many of the Boost base libraries became (almost) part of the standard
library, it became harder to justify
using Boost at work.

At the same time the management of using Boost in work projects became a
bit more challenging. Do you
always build with the latest stable, or nail down a version and not
automatically receive latest goodies? For a
while Boost was not as stable as one would have liked, and not as well
tested or supported, and that tarnished
the brand.

Since then the marginalisation of Boost has continued. Less and less of
Boost is in the 'must have' category as the
language and standard library mature.

I wonder if Boost has had its day and served its purpose in its current
form.

Kinda sad though, as libraries like Proto still offer wondrous goodies, but
they're just too niche.

For comparison, libraries like Adobe's ATL do a few fancy things I'd love
to see in Boost.