Re: Boost Asset Stewardship Review from Ion

From: Christian Mazakas (christian.mazakas_at_[hidden])
Date: 2024-09-08 14:27:24

On Fri, Sep 6, 2024 at 7:25 PM Ion Gaztañaga via Boost <
boost_at_[hidden]> wrote:

> I also perceive that Boost’s vitality has declined, although mailing
> list posts might have declined in part because “high frequency”
> interactions moved to Slack and some technical bug discussions to Github
> issues. The mailing list remains the method for more formal interactions.
>
> It is true that many new libraries skip Boost now. Possible reasons:
>
> a) The technical level required to pass a review in Boost is very high
>

Hmm, maybe this was true more in the past. I've been less than impressed
with more recent Boost reviews where it's basically, "Wow, I've never heard
of Redis until 10 minutes ago but this library seems great!".

But to this end, I put the blame on the review wizards for allowing reviews
where there's a strong lack of expertise by the reviewers.

> I also prefer to set aside controversial issues like Codes of
> Conduct (who defines “hate”/”harassment”/” inappropriate”? who enforces
> it? etc.), because I don’t think will help increase participation in the
> project.
>

A Code of Conduct shouldn't ever be controversial, especially because Boost
has already had a de facto one for decades.

https://www.boost.org/community/policy.html

The problem is, if you named this code-of-conduct.html, it triggers a
visceral reaction such as Andrey chudding out quite badly in my review
thread.

This kind of stuff just simply makes Boost look bad and incompatible with
the modern programming landscape and culture. llvm and Linux both have
codes of conduct and they're easily more important than Boost. A CoC is not
the death of a project.

- Christian