Re: Boost Asset Stewardship Review from Ruben

From: Ruben Perez (rubenperez038_at_[hidden])
Date: 2024-09-13 21:07:06

On Fri, 13 Sept 2024 at 22:25, Andrey Semashev via Boost
<boost_at_[hidden]> wrote:
>
> On 9/13/24 14:41, Ruben Perez via Boost wrote:
> >
> > I'd like to echo a point made by others in the mailing list throughout
> > this discussion and also somewhat reflected in The Boost Foundation's
> > proposal, about mailing list friendliness to newcomers. When I first
> > reached out to evaluate the potential usefulness of what would become
> > Boost.MySQL (https://lists.boost.org/Archives/boost//2020/03/248301.php)
> > I received a couple of really discouraging comments, which almost made
> > me abandon the idea. These comments were based on the (somehow
> > understandable) misconception that my library was a wrapper around the
> > official C API. Thanks to other people's support (Richard, Chris,
> > Vinnie and some others, IIRC) I managed to move forward. But it could
> > have not been the case. As a community, we could try to improve
> > instances of this to make things better for newcomers.
>
> My comments in that discussion were not particularly positive, so I'm
> guessing you're referring to me. If so, I'm truly sorry that my comments
> made that effect on you and almost costed us a great new library.
> Perhaps, I should have chosen a different tone of my messages.

Yes, as I said in my previous ML post, I was referring to them.
>
> However, I think it is fair to ask a new author to explain why the
> proposed library is useful, and it is the author's task to correct
> possible misconceptions that may become apparent among the community
> during the discussion. I think, the community members should be able to
> express their thoughts on the library, even if those thoughts are not
> positive. Yes, unfortunately, this may put extra pressure on the author
> of the proposal, but I think even the negative feedback is much more
> useful than no feedback at all. Because you can take negative feedback
> and convert it to improvements to your library, but you can't do that
> with silence.

I'm completely with you, feedback is necessary. I'm thankful to
everyone who has provided me with negative feedback, as (to the extent
I've known) I've converted it into improvements to my code. We should
definitely keep providing feedback to library authors as much as we
can.

I think a slightly more positive tone (as you suggest), with the exact
same information, would have helped me back then. We can't change the
past, but we may try our best with whoever comes next. We all love C++
and Boost and get passionate about it (this all applies to me, too).

I'm happy that we had this discussion within the community in such a
positive way. Let's keep the good feedback going.

Thanks,
Ruben.