Things I Hate (Re: New Website)

From: Vinnie Falco (vinnie.falco_at_[hidden])
Date: 2024-04-16 14:35:53

Now that we're here I want to tell you about some things I hate. To clear
out any suspense they are:

1. April Fool's
2. Deadlines
3. New Boost Website

April Fool's

I can't stand this fauxliday and I refuse to participate. Every year sees
the C++ community produce an outsized load of lame jokes. The problem, I
think, is that comedy on some level has to come at someone else's expense.
Good comedy at least. Our community is so damn politically correct that
folks are afraid to make a really good joke for fear of getting canceled at
some level.

Deadlines

I hate deadlines. People ask me "how long will this take" and honestly I
have no idea. About a decade ago I stopped trying to estimate how long
things take as I never was able to give a reasonably accurate answer. I'm
good at writing the code, but figuring out how long it will take - not so
much. During development, unanticipated stuff comes up. A discovered design
flaw or implementation obstacle, which can't be predicted. These days I
just figure that if a project is properly staffed and there is reasonable
daily progress, eventually it will get finished.

New Boost Website

Well I don't hate the whole thing but there is definitely stuff which is
bothering me. Like how long the thing is taking. Seems like it is still not
ready to go up on boost.org. But more importantly I have to be honest...
I'm not feeling this Cairo font. I am just going to come out and say it:
the old Quickbook stylesheets are superior to the new stylesheets which
render in Cairo. Compare:

https://www.boost.org/doc/libs/1_85_0/libs/beast/doc/html/beast/ref/boost__beast__websocket__stream/async_read.html
vs.
https://www.boost.io/doc/libs/1_84_0/libs/beast/doc/html/beast/ref/boost__beast__websocket__stream/async_read.html

or

https://www.boost.org/doc/libs/1_85_0/libs/beast/doc/html/beast/concepts/DynamicBuffer.html
vs.
https://www.boost.io/doc/libs/1_84_0/libs/beast/doc/html/beast/concepts/DynamicBuffer.html

The new one is better than it was a month ago, thanks to Julio our new
frontend developer. But it is still not as good as the old one.

I cannot in good conscience propose replacing something old with something
new unless the new thing is demonstrably superior. Or at the very least,
equally as good. So I think we still have work to do.

Thanks