Re: What is this "Beman Project Development" exactly

From: Robert Ramey (ramey_at_[hidden])
Date: 2024-05-09 18:15:50

On 5/8/24 4:19 PM, Robert Ramey via Boost wrote:
> I confess that I'm totally mystified by this.  I've looked over the web 
> page and it doesn't help me.
> 

Motivated by some of the comments and observations, I spent a little 
more time delving into the information available on the beman project.
The most intriguing/revealing page I found here:

https://github.com/beman-project/beman/blob/main/docs/governance.md

Seems pretty clear that the goal is to provide library implementation 
for the C++ standard library.  Very similar to the founding of Boost. 
But the structure is quite a bit different.

Beman Project Leads.

It (currently)has three "project leads".  "The Beman Project Leads are 
responsible for maintaining the Library Acceptance and Incubating 
process. This includes strategic planning, setting goals, and ensuring 
the organization's objectives are met."  Although the goal of 
contributing to the standard seems similar to the original goal of 
Boost, the means proposed to accomplishing it seem 180 degrees 
different.  There is no defined review process, reviewers, review 
manager, review wizard as these functions are the responsibility of 
"project leads".  The group of project leads is increased/decreased by 
solely by consensus among the project leads.  Currently, the designated 
project leads are: Jeff Garland, David Sankel and Inbal Levi.

Beman Project Contributors.

The Beman Project Contributors are individuals who help execute the 
facilities provided by the Beman Project. That's all it says.  I have no 
idea what this might mean.

Beman Project Library Authors.

The Beman Project Library Authors are the Library authors who are 
maintaining and improving the libraries that are part of the Beman 
Project.  I think I know what this means.

So there it is.  Original Boost Goal of creating implementation of ideas 
proposed for standardization, but only such libraries.  Managed top-down 
rather than bottom-up as boost.org is. It's stated that this is not 
intended to replace boost.org. I believe this as since C++11, role of 
boost.org in this role is much diminished if not eliminated.  For this 
same reason I believe that this idea will be a flop.  That's even 
without considering the issues raised by modules.

Again, Boost should distance itself from the standardization process 
which has arrived at a cul-de-sac where imagination, inspiration and 
sometimes genius is replaced by negotiation, consensus building, 
politics and petty parochial interests. They can do their thing, we'll 
do ours - which is develop innovative imaginative C++ software.

One thing I do like about this project is that has tried to address our 
issues related to tools and looks like they've provided an interesting 
alternative starting point.  Our tools have become too complex to use 
and maintain. To be fair, a lot of this problem is due to the complexity 
of C++ itself. I know we've been working to try to fix this, but let's 
face it, it's not working.

Robert Ramey