Re: [Asset Stewardship] About the Beman Project

From: Andrzej Krzemienski (akrzemi1_at_[hidden])
Date: 2024-09-11 13:03:28

śr., 11 wrz 2024 o 07:41 Zach Laine via Boost <boost_at_[hidden]>
napisał(a):

> On Tue, Sep 10, 2024 at 1:50 PM Andrzej Krzemienski via Boost
> <boost_at_[hidden]> wrote:
> >
> > I have always thought that Boost was conceived to help create
> high-quality
> > libraries, with the purpose in mind that they would be good candidates
> for
> > standardization. The quality would have been achieved through the
> thorough
> > Boost Review process, and then through collecting user (commercial and
> > private) experience. Boost evidently fulfilled this role. Boost libraries
> > are still proposed for standardization: Boost.Static_vector and
> > Boost.ASIO.
>
> These kinds of additions are pretty rare.  Compare static_vector,
> flat_map, and the modification of optional to have the T&
> sepcialization to the number of library features added in the same
> time period that did *not* come from Boost.  Also, all of those things
> are "old" in some sense.  None of them was added in the last 10 years.
>
> > I would expect that the Boost Foundation Board members present at WG21
> (the
> > ISO/IEC C++ Standards Committee) meetings would encourage the proposal
> > authors to take the Boost path. Do they?
>
> Sure.  I've tried, and *hard*.  Tony Van Eerd and David Sankel are
> also two regulars who ask, "Why isn't this a Boost library?"  There
> are almost never any takers.  It comes down to this:
>
> 1) It's another hurdle to jump.  Getting something through committee
> review means handing off maintenance to library implementers.  Going
> through Boost first means dealing with yet another specific process
> (that's a lot by itself), but also incurring a long-lived maintenance
> task as well.
>
> 2) Boost is not a very welcoming place.  I have had at least one WG21
> member show up here, at my behest, be treated "quite rudely" by his
> lights, and then promptly leave, never to return.  I have heard many
> people say the same thing at conferences over the years (so, not WG21
> folks necessarily).  And before you debate whether this is a justified
> reaction, or say these people are thin-skinned weenies or whatever,
> know that such a debate does not ultimately matter.  If people feel
> unwelcome or that interacting with this list is futile, they won't
> bother.
>
> 3) The tools suck.  Boost build and our doc chain are great once you
> have them set up, but are impenetrable to newcomers.  They are
> non-standard, which is unavoidable for a doc chain (there is no de
> facto standard), but odd and disappointing when it comes to build (the
> world has standardized on CMake, for better or worse).
>
> 4) The one time I managed to cajole someone into doing a Boost review,
> it was rejected because people didn't see the point of it.  I'm still
> not sure why that was.  It had a point, is quite useful, and is now in
> the standard.  At the time of the review, it was clear that this was
> probably going into C++ with or without Boost, and people also did not
> care to have it in Boost for that reason.  One kind of Boost library
> content is implementations of things that are in the standard that
> might not yet be in your implementation.  This was a chance to
> influence the direction of a standard library entity, and people did
> not see that opportunity for influence to be worth their time.
>
> That last point is very important.  #4 is not a criticism, so much as
> pointing out a very different orientation of Boost vs. WG21.  There's
> nothing wrong with this.  It does however indicate that a new project,
> focused exclusively on road-testing new libraries bound for the
> standard, should be created.  That project is Beman.
>
> > Of course, the proposal authors may not want to do it for valid reasons.
> In
> > that case, I would expect Boost Foundation Board members present at WG21
> > meetings to collect these reasons and report them to the Boost community,
> > e.g., via the Boost Developers mailing list. Is this happening?
>
> I've said these things at various times, on the list and off, but what
> I wrote above is the first time I've tried to summarize all the issues
> in one place.
>
> > I hear from my colleagues in WG21 that it is Boost leaders that proposed
> > the Beman project because they do not think Boost works well. This is
> more
> > like a rumor, so one can hardly build their position based on this, but
> it
> > adds to the impression that there is a subset of the Boost Foundation
> Board
> > members who do not believe Boost is capable of fulfilling the mission of
> > incubating the libraries intended for standardization.
>
> This is not accurate.  I think the consensus among Beman participants
> is that Boost should do what Boost does well -- peer reviewed C++
> libraries -- and Beman should do its thing -- provide a testing ground
> and distribution mechanism not for C++ libraries in general, but for
> C++ standard library entities *only*.  These are very different aims.
>
> > They may be right. But in that case, I think the Boost community deserves
> > to hear the reasons.
> >
> > My impression might be wrong and unfair, therefore I would like the
> people
> > to respond to this, and possibly clear things up.
>
> Hopefully what I wrote answers your questions.
>

Indeed it does!
Thanks Zach for this input. This is exactly the kind of information I was
hoping to get.
This gives us something to work on.
I take it seriously that Boost is perceived as an unwelcoming environment.
Also, some things that you say seem to correspond with Vinnie's
observation. If one feels one got a green light from LEWG that one's
library will be accepted into STD, the motivation for putting it into Boost
diminishes. Here, I do not think we will be able to do much.

Once again,
Thank you for your thoughtful input.

Regards,
&rzej;

>
> > I know this is long and unstructured, so thank you for reading till the
> > end. I hope I managed to get across why the question about the Beman
> > Project is relevant in the context of the Boost Asset Stewardship Review.
>
> Not at all.  Thanks for bringing this up.
>
> Zach
>
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