Re: Proposal for Inclusion of Async.MQTT5 Library in Boost

From: Vinnie Falco (vinnie.falco_at_[hidden])
Date: 2023-12-01 17:42:22

On Fri, Dec 1, 2023 at 8:25 AM Andrzej Krzemienski via Boost
<boost_at_[hidden]> wrote:
> My impression is that it is not popular, surely far less than the HTTP protocol.

Nothing is going to come close to the popularity of HTTP but this MQTT
is a super-annoying protocol which unfortunately has a dedicated niche
for which the use-case is ideal. People invent their own MQTT
libraries almost as often as they write their own JSON libraries.

>  My question to the Boost community is, does every good library need to be included in Boost?

In general, I would say no.

>  I thought that Boost was supposed to be an "extended Standard Library", containing:
>
> 1. Portability fixes
> 2. Implementing missing language features
> 3. Vocabulary types (I consider Boost.ASIO one)
> 4. Frequently used components
> 5. Ground-breaking designs and ideas
>
> Async.MQTT5 doesn't fit into any of these categories. (Neither does Boost.AEDIS or Boost.MySql.)

I agree that Aedis, MySQL, and MQTT5 do not precisely fit your list
above. However, there is a certain synergy with Asio, Beast, Aedis,
MySQL, and the proposed MQTT which has merit. The reality is that
users are increasingly turning away from Boost in favor of the
standard library (this is a conversation for another thread). If Boost
only limits itself to items one through four in your list above, the
value proposition for Boost becomes unclear over time.

One of the ways we might envision Boost reinventing itself is to
capitalize on the one area where Boost is so far ahead that there is
simply no competition:

    "The C++ standard can't even connect to the Internet." - Vinnie Falco

Based on the papers coming out of wg21 I suspect that
committee-designed networking and its accompanying replacement for
Kohlhoff's executors are going to be at the same level of quality and
usability as, say, ranges. Make of that what you will.

In the meanwhile if we can position Boost to have a strong set of
networking libraries that work together well this gives us a unique
advantage. People will grudgingly download Boost despite the usual
irrational complaints ("too big", "too many dependencies",
"inconsistent quality") because they cannot get this set of harmonious
features anywhere else.

There is a group of authors and contributors working on a technology
demo which integrates all of the networking libraries in Boost into
several applications to showcase how the libraries might be used
together to build enterprise-ready systems. This project is called
"Boost ServerTech" and you can learn more about it here:

BoostServerTech project proposal
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ZQrod1crs8EaNLLqSYIRMacwR3Rv0hC5l-gfL-jOp2M/edit

Architecture Documentation
https://anarthal.github.io/servertech-chat/01-architecture.html

Boost ServerTech Chat
https://github.com/anarthal/servertech-chat

Ruben Perez is a C++ Alliance Staff Engineer who is spearheading this project.

>
> Do we have a clear set of criteria for what belongs to Boost? And I do not
> mean only the quality bar, but also the range of business domain.
> What's wrong with a good library hosted on its own in GitHub?

There is not a clear set of criteria, but I think that our Contributor
Guide should offer some kind of guidance on "what belongs in Boost." A
rigid set of rules doesn't really make sense for me. Since libraries
are quite unique as well as their authors, we should evaluate each
library on a case by case basis, with some general principles posted
in the documentation so that newcomers to the mailing list can orient
themselves.

Thanks