May 2016 - Boost-announce - lists.boost.org

Boost.Fiber mini-review May 23 - June 1
by Nat Goodspeed 23 May '16

23 May '16

Hi all, The Boost.Fiber candidate library by Oliver Kowalke begins a mini-review today, Monday May 23, which will close Wednesday June 1. It was last reviewed in September 2015; the verdict at that time was "not yet." Oliver has been working steadily to address review comments and to improve the library in other ways, and has brought the library back for mini-review. The updated documentation is here: http://olk.github.io/libs/fiber/doc/html/index.html The code is on the master branch of this repository: https://github.com/olk/boost-fiber/tree/master I believe it is Oliver's intention to respond to review feedback on the develop branch, leaving the master branch stable during the review. I will monitor reviews and discussion on both the boost-users@ list and the boost@ developers' list. Please include at least "fiber" and "review" in the subject line of your mail, e.g. by replying to this message. (Please reply to only ONE list, however.) I will also check the Boost Library Incubator for Fiber reviews: http://rrsd.com/blincubator.com/bi_library/fiber/?gform_post_id=859 though I check that less frequently than email. Please do remember to state in your review whether you think the library should be accepted as a Boost library. Thank you for your interest and your feedback! ----------------------------------------------------- Here follows a synopsis of issues raised during the September 2015 review: Cross-thread fiber migration: Evidently the community strongly desires the ability to transfer a suspended fiber from one thread to another. Now supported, with documentation. Cross-thread migration support implies a requirement to document the thread safety requirements of the customization API. Addressed. Standard required timing specifications: meet (30.2.4 Timing specifications [thread.req.timing]). Addressed. Adapt one or more existing test suites for thread facilities to validate the correctness of the Fiber library's synchronization constructs. The requester clarified in private mail that I misstated his suggestion: he wanted Oliver to review one or more such test suites to discover the kinds of issues that can arise with thread synchronization constructs. He has professed himself satisfied with the current state of the Fiber library's synchronization constructs. std::chrono support: ensure that wait_until() can accept any supported time_point specialization. Addressed. C++11 compatibility. Addressed. Document that this_fiber::yield() (et al.) are valid from main(), or in general from a thread function, as well as from explicitly-launched fibers. Addressed. Make shared_state lock requirements explicit: for example, make mark_ready_and_notify_() accept a std::unique_lock<>& (or &&) to force its caller to provide one. Addressed. Avoid holding mutex during condition_variable::notify_*() calls. Addressed. packaged_task must not decay-copy its task arguments. Addressed. Align fibers::async() signature, result description and invoke_helper implementation with std::async(). Avoid returning std::move(...). Addressed. Wait list implementation: try an intrusive linked list of fiber_context objects. Addressed. Avoid sleeping thread when no fibers are ready -- block on external event. Better handling of waiting tasks (decentralized wait queues?). Addressed. Optimization to resume awakened fiber on the thread that awakens it. Hooks provided. Template redundancy: eliminate duplication between specializations for T, T& and void. The future, shared_future, shared_state, promise and task_object templates were specifically cited. Addressed. Leverage predicate-based condition::wait() overload internally. Addressed. Nested schedulers: make schedulers be schedulable entities themselves. Not implemented. Improve robustness of `promise' handling in Asynchronous Callbacks documentation. Avoid overconfident remarks about it. Addressed. Fix Note overstating the requirements on condition_variable::wait(). Addressed.

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Rebooting Boost: Call for Lightning Talks @ CppCon
by Niall Douglas 22 May '16

22 May '16

At C++ Now a number of informal meetings showed there to be frustrations with the current ecosystem around the Boost C++ Libraries (to paraphrase a founder of Boost, "Boost is supposed to serve *the entire C++ community; it isn't Boost's goal to serve Boost's community*". Recent and recurrent boost-dev discussions have raised the lack of cmake based tooling; lack of ABI management and the consequent ODR violation when mixing Boost versions in the same process; the anti-social behaviour of Boost towards library end users, new ideas, new blood and the wider C++ community; and the chronic lack of maintenance of up to half the Boost libraries. One question which needs to be answered is whether a clean reboot of Boost from the first principles of proving high quality C++ libraries well suited for use with the latest C++ standard is viable. This new collection of C++ libraries would be started completely from scratch (even if some existing libraries were ported into the new organisation), so ANYTHING is possible. All we need is a critical mass of library developers willing to collaborate on developing a shared infrastructure mutually beneficial to all participants, whether library developer or library end user. To that end of discovering if this critical mass is there, five minute lightning talk topics are requested for CppCon this September on this topic: "What design pattern, practice or idiom should a standards aspiring collection of C++ 14/17 libraries share?" Please keep each talk topic focused on a single design pattern, practice or idiom (see suggested talk format below). Each speaker may submit up to THREE talk topics (not all may be accepted if there are a lack of slots, so please rank them in order of preference). Please send your talk topics to me privately by email, only if sufficient numbers present to fill a session will your name and your talk topic be shared with the CppCon Programme Committee. We'll try to arrange a short panel session at the end so attendees can ask questions of the speakers. After the lightning talk we'll arrange a restaurant so all the speakers and any interested attendees can dine together, followed by a night in a Bellevue bar. If after the dust has settled it is felt there is a critical mass sufficient to reboot a brand shiny new edition of Boost, we'll start development! I should *stress* that it is up to the CppCon Programme Committee whether these lightning talks are approved or not. I'll just copy and paste your proposed talk to the CppCon PC as-is. If insufficient lightning talk topics are received by me to fill a 60 minute session, I'll withdraw this talk proposal from CppCon. Suggested talk format ================ Five minutes is not much time, so here is a suggested lightning talk outline: 1. A current widely practiced library design pattern (show example). 2. The problems it generates for library users or maintainers. 3. Your proposed alternative design pattern (show example). 4. The problems the alternative design pattern fixes. 5. Any mockup, prototype or even live demo (!) of the alternative design pattern in action. Suggested talk themes might be documentation, packaging, distribution, testing, tooling, quality assessment, barriers to entry, governance, strategy, important gaps in the standard libraries, automation and deprecation/removal policies. Here is an example of such a lightning talk: 1. Current design pattern: Library v1.00: namespace boost { namespace lib { void foo(size_t, char); } } User code: boost::lib::foo(100, 'n'); 2. Problem: Library v1.01: namespace boost { namespace lib { void foo(char, size_t); } } User code: boost::lib::foo(100, 'n'); // oh oh! 3. Alternative: Library v1.00: namespace boost { namespace lib { inline namespace v100 { void foo(size_t, char); } } } #define BOOST_LIB_NAMESPACE_V100 boost::lib::v100 Library v1.01: namespace boost { namespace lib { inline namespace v101 { void foo(char, size_t); } } } #define BOOST_LIB_NAMESPACE_V101 boost::lib::v101 User code: // Mount v100 of Boost.Lib into "lib" namespace lib=BOOST_LIB_NAMESPACE_V100; lib::foo(100, 'n'); // ABI stable! No ODR violation possible! 4. Problems fixed: a) Mixing incompatible versions of individual Boost libraries in the same process (or even translation unit) is now safe. b) Libraries can now depend on other libraries without worrying about breaking code which depends on them which uses a different version of the same dependency. This greatly helps reduce change ripple effects. c) Forward compatibility or alternative implementation shims are now very easy to implement e.g. library users can externally configure either Boost.Filesystem or std::experimental::filesystem for your library to use, your code simply refers to _some_ Filesystem TS implementation e.g. namespace filesystem = FILESYSTEM_TS_IMPLEMENTATION; filesystem::path mypath; -- ned Productions Limited Consulting http://www.nedproductions.biz/ http://ie.linkedin.com/in/nialldouglas/

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Review Wizard Report for May 2016
by Ronald Garcia 17 May '16

17 May '16

============================================== Review Wizard Status Report for May 2016 ============================================== News ==== 1. Boost 1.58 Released April 2015. New Libraries: Endian, Sort 2. Metaparse Library Accepted 3. Hana Library Accepted 4. DLL Library Accepted 5. Http Library Rejected 6. Boost 1.59 Released August 2015. New Libraries: Coroutine2, Convert 7. AFIO Library Reviewed 8. Fiber Library Conditionally Accepted 9. Boost 1.60 Released December 2015. New Libraries: Variadic Macro Data 10. Quaternions, Vectors, Matrices Accepted 11. Fit Library Rejected 11. Boost 1.61 Released May 2016. New Libraries: Compute, DLL, Metaparse, Hana Open Issues =========== The following libraries have review managers, but have not yet been scheduled for review: * Range Extensions - added May 2012; review manager: Neil Groves. The following libraries have been reviewed and await reports from their review managers: * AFIO - reviewed August 2015; review manager: Ahmed Charles. The following libraries have been accepted to Boost, but have not yet been integrated into Boost Git: * Contract - accepted September 2012; author: Lorenzo Caminiti. * Quaternions,Vectors,Matrices - accepted December 2015; author: Emil Dotchevski The following libraries have been accepted and submitted to Boost Git, but have not yet appeared in a release: * none The following libraries have been accepted provisionally to Boost, but have not been submitted for mini-review and full acceptance: * none General Announcements ===================== As always, we need experienced review managers. Please take a look at the list of libraries in need of managers and check out their descriptions. In general review managers are active boost participants, including library contributors, infrastructure contributors, and other mailing list participants with a substantial track record of constructive participation. If you can serve as review manager for any of them, email Ron Garcia or John Phillips, "rxg at cs dot ubc dot ca" and "johnphillipsithica at gmail dot com" respectively. We are also suffering from a lack of reviewers. While we all understand time pressures and the need to complete paying work, the strength of Boost is based on the detailed and informed reviews submitted by you. If you are interested in reviewing a library but won't have time during the review period, you can always prepare your review ahead of time. No rule says you can only work on a review during the review period. A link to this report will be posted to www.boost.org. If you would like us to make any modifications or additions to this report, please email Ron or John. The review schedule is an unordered list of the libraries awaiting review. As such, any library on the schedule can be reviewed once the developer is ready, a review manager has been secured, and the manager, developer, and wizards agree on a date to schedule the review. Review Schedule =============== * Join (M) * Block Pointer (M) * Singularity (M) * Extended Complex Numbers (M) * Boost.Range Extensions * Nowide (M) * Array (M) * STL Extensions (M) * Countertree (M) * Process (M) * Application (M) * Edit Distance (M) * Mixin (M) * Dependency Injection (M) * Segmented Tree * Fiber ``(M)`` marks libraries that need review managers. -------------------- Join ---- :Author: Yigong Liu :Review Manager: Needed :Download: http://channel.sourceforge.net/ :Description: Join is an asynchronous, message based C++ concurrency library based on join calculus. It is applicable both to multi-threaded applications and to the orchestration of asynchronous, event-based applications. It follows Comega's design and implementation and builds with Boost facilities. It provides a high level concurrency API with asynchronous methods, synchronous methods, and chords which are "join-patterns" defining the synchronization, asynchrony, and concurrency. Block Pointer ------------- :Author: Phil Bouchard :Review Manager: Needed :Download: https://svn.boost.org/svn/boost/sandbox/block_ptr/ :Description: Deterministic memory manager of constant complexity capable of handling cyclic collections. Singularity ----------- :Author: Ben Robinson :Review Manager: Needed :Download: https://github.com/cppmaven/Singularity :Description: The Singularity Design Pattern allows you to restrict any class to a single instance. Unlike the infamous Singleton, Singularity gives you direct control over the lifetime of the object, does not require you to grant global access to the object, nor does it limit you to the default constructor for that object. Extended Complex Numbers ------------------------ :Author: Matthieu Schaller :Review Manager: Needed :Download: http://code.google.com/p/cpp-imaginary-numbers/ :Description: The library is an extension of the std::complex class addressing two issues: 1. The standard does not guaranty the behaviour of the complex class if instantiated with types other than float/double/long double. 2. Some calculation where pure imaginary numbers (i.e. multiples of sqrt(-1)) appear are unnecessarily slowed down due to the lack of support for these numbers. The code I submit contains two interleaved classes boost::complex and boost::imaginary which can be instantiated with any type T provided T overloads the usual arithmetic operators and some basic (real) mathematical functions depending on which complex function will be used. It is thus an extended version of Thorsten Ottosen's n1869 proposal (http://www.open-std.org/JTC1/SC22/WG21/docs/papers/2005/n1869.html) Range Extensions ---------------- :Author: Akira Takahashi :Review Manager: Neil Groves :Download: https://github.com/faithandbrave/OvenToBoost :Description: This project adds some features of the Oven Range Library to Boost.Range. Features: - Additional Range Adaptors (taken, taken_while, dropped, dropped_while, elements, elements_key, memoized, outdirected) - Extensions for using Lambda (regular function, regular operator) - Infinite Range (iteration function) - and additional range utilities. Nowide ------ :Author: Artyom Beilis :Review Manager: Needed :Download: http://cppcms.com/files/nowide/ :Description: This library makes cross platform Unicode aware programming easier. It provides an implementation of standard C and C++ library functions, such that their inputs are UTF-8 aware on Windows without requiring to use Wide API. Array ----- :Author: Brian Smith :Review Manager: Needed :Download: https://github.com/BrianJSmith/Array :Description: The array class is a C++11 compatible implementation of static multidimensional arrays. STL Extensions -------------- :Author: Vadim Stadnik :Review Manager: Needed :Download: https://github.com/vstadnik/stl_ext_adv_review :Description: The proposed library [stl_ext_adv] offers augmented array based B+ trees and STL containers that support the interfaces of the C++03 sequences and associative containers. The library offers a number of extensions and performance improvements that are not available in C++03 and C++11 standard containers. Countertree ----------- :Author: Francisco Jose Tapia :Review Manager: Needed :Download: https://dl.dropbox.com/u/8437476/works/countertree_code_doc.zip :Description: This library is an implementation of a binary red-black counter tree. This tree have an additional counter in each leaf. This permit the access to the elements by the position, like in a vector. It is a random access container with random access iterators. COUNTERTREE This kind of trees have an additional counter in each leaf. This permit the access to the elements by the position, like in a vector. It is a random access container with random access iterators. With unordered information we have a vector with the same speed inserting and deleting in any position (O(log N)). With ordered information, we have the classes set, multiset, map and multimap, with identical interface than the STL classes, with the plus of access to the elements by position, like in a vector. The iterators are random access , and you can subtract them. SUBALLOCATOR The suballocator is a layer between the allocator and the data structures, compatible with any allocator with the STL definition. The suballocator replace to the allocator in the allocation of equal size elements. It provides speed, return the unused memory and decrease the memory used by the program and improve the cache performance due to the data locality improvement ( 30% of improvement of speed respect the std::allocator with GCC 4.7) Process ------- :Author: Boris Schaeling :Review Manager: Needed :Download: http://www.highscore.de/boost/process0.5/process.zip :Description: Boost.Process is a library to manage system processes. It can be used to: * create child processes * setup streams for child processes * communicate with child processes through streams (synchronously or asynchronously) * wait for processes to exit (synchronously or asynchronously) * terminate processes Application ----------- :Author: Renato Tegon Forti :Review Manager: Needed :Download: https://github.com/retf/Boost.Application :Documentation: http://www.dokfile.com/appbeta4/docs/libs/application/doc/html/index.html :Description: Application provides an application environment, or start point to any people that want a basic infrastructure to build an system application on Windows or Unix Variants (e.g. Linux, MacOS). Application uses behaviours modeled using 'aspects' concept proposed by 'Vicente J. Botet Escriba', that allow easy extension and customization of library components. The application modes uses these components internally to achieve the user desirable behaviours. Application provide many useful ready-to-use features, e.g: * Run application as Windows Service; * Run application as UNIX/POSIX Daemon; * Plugin extension system; * Process(executable) Single instance Instantiation support; * Application SIGNAL/Callbacks customization; * Windows Service Setup feature; * And many others. Edit Distance ------------- :Author: Erik Erlandson :Review Manager: Needed :Download: https://github.com/erikerlandson/algorithm/tree/edit_distance/sequence :Description: The edit distance is the length of the shortest (or least-cost) edit script from one sequence to another, where an edit script is defined as a sequence of insertion, deletion and (optionally) substitution operations. The function implementing the edit distance is named edit_distance. This function will return the edit distance between two sequences, where sequences may be any valid range object supporting forward iteration. The edit_distance function will also, if requested, return the edit script. Mixin ----- :Author: Borislav Stanimirov :Download: https://github.com/iboB/boost.mixin :Documentation: http://ibob.github.io/boost.mixin/ :Review Manager: Needed :Description: Boost.Mixin is a library that allows the composition and modifications of polymorphic types at run time. Types and objects are constructed out of building blocks called mixins. The library uses the type boost::mixin::object as a placeholder, whose instances can be extended with existing classes (mixins), thus providing a particular instance with the functionality of all those types. Accessing the newly formed type's interface is made through messages: stand-alone functions generated by the library, which can be thought of as methods. This is given while also having full abstraction between the interface and the definition of types. An existing feature in another language similar to Boost.Mixin and also an inspiration for the library are the mixins in Ruby. The library also has similarities with the pattern entity-component-system. Dependency Injection -------------------- :Author: :Download: https://github.com/krzysztof-jusiak/di :Documentation: http://krzysztof-jusiak.github.io/di/boost/libs/di/doc/html :Incubator: http://rrsd.com/blincubator.com/bi_library/di-dependency-injection/?gform_p… :Review Manager: Needed :Description: Boost.DI is a dependency injection library improving manual dependency injection by simplifying object instantiation with automatic dependencies injection. Using Boost.DI has many advantages over manual dependency injection. * Reduce boilerplate code (No factories, no objects creation in specific order) * Reduce cost of maintenance effort (Constructor signature change won't affect di configuration) * Reduce testing effort * Give better control of what and how is created (Policies, Providers) * Give better understanding about objects hierarchy (UML Dumper) Segmented Tree -------------- :Author: Chris Clearwater :Download: http://rrsd.com/blincubator.com/bi_library/segmentedtreeseq-2/?gform_post_i… :Repository: http://github.com/det/segmented_tree :Documentation: https://det.github.io/segmented_tree :Review Manager: Glen Fernandes :Description: SegmentedTreeSeq is a sequence data structure like vector and deque that supports efficient random access insert and erase. It is implemented using B+Trees and has an emphasis on speed and a low memory overhead. Fiber ----- :Author: Oliver Kowalke :Download: https://github.com/olk/boost-fiber :Documentation: http://olk.github.io/libs/fiber/doc/html/ :Review Manager: Nat Goodspeed :Description: Boost.Fit is a header-only C++11/C++14 library that provides utilities for functions and function objects. Libraries under development =========================== See The Boost Library Incubator Project at http://blincubator.com for discussion of libraries currently under development.

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[Boost-users] Boost.Fit review Mars 3-20 result
by Vicente J. Botet Escriba 16 May '16

16 May '16

Hi, I will be out for two weeks and I wanted to at least give the result of the Boost.Fit library review even if I would need more time to have a complete report. Summary ======= The review of the proposed Boost.Fit library ended on Mars 20, 2016. The verdict is: Conditional acceptance (a new review is needed) There were too much concerns about the documentation and what exactly this library is proposing and not enough reviews commenting the design, code and test for each one of the proposed functions. From the review discussion I deduce that there is some interest in the library, and that some people don't understand yet what the library is proposing. Paul has started already to take in account some if the issues raised during the review and a lot of them must be resolved before we re-try a new review. There were some discussion about the name of the library, but there were no consensus. Paul is free to change the name of his library and see how people react. On behalf of the Boost community, I would like to thank Paul Fultz for the work he has put into the Fit library so far. I encourage him to continue to evolve this library and to bring it back for a new review. We had seven 6 formal votes, and 2 more votes without a complete review abbreviated here: Steaven Watanabe: No in his current state Zach Laine : Conditinal acceptance Krzysztof Jusiak: Accepted Artyom Beilis : Rejected Peter Dimov : Accepted (no review) Manuel Sancher : Accepted (no review) Rob Stewart : Conditinal acceptance ??? Louis Dionne : Conditinal acceptance There were other people that participated on the review giving their advice respect to a specific issue. I thank each of these reviewers, and indeed everyone who invested some time participating in the discussions. If you feel that I have misrepresented your position, or have omitted or garbled an important point, please respond: the archived mail thread should accurately reflect the will of the community, even if this message does not. Detailed Report =============== You will need to wait yet for a month before I will be able to do it. On the mean time there are a lot of issues that must be addressed and that are part of the github issues. For more information see: Github:https://github.com/pfultz2/Fit/tree/boost Issues:https://github.com/pfultz2/Fit/issues Documentation:http://pfultz2.github.io/Fit/doc/html/ Hopping this helps, Vicente Botet Escriba _______________________________________________ Boost-users mailing list Boost-users(a)lists.boost.org http://lists.boost.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/boost-users

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Boost 1.61.0 has been released
by Rene Rivera 13 May '16

13 May '16

Release 1.61.0 of the Boost C++ Libraries is now available. These open-source libraries work well with the C++ Standard Library, and are usable across a broad spectrum of applications. The Boost license encourages both commercial and non-commercial use. This release contains four new libraries and numerous enhancements and bug fixes for existing libraries. New Libraries * Compute: Parallel/GPU-computing library, from Kyle Lutz. * DLL: Library for comfortable work with DLL and DSO, from Renato Tegon Forti and Antony Polukhin * Hana: A modern C++ metaprogramming library, from Louis Dionne. * Metaparse: A library for generating compile time parsers parsing embedded DSL code as part of the C++ compilation process, from Abel Sinkovics. For details, including download links, see http://www.boost.org/users/news/version_1.61.0 You can also download directly from SourceForge: http://sourceforge.net/projects/boost/files/boost/1.61.0/ Tom Kent has made pre-built windows binaries, and they are available at: https://sourceforge.net/projects/boost/files/boost-binaries/1.61.0/ To install this release on your system, see http://www.boost.org/doc/libs/release/more/getting_started/index.html Thanks, --The Boost release team Vladimir Prus Rene Rivera Marshall Clow Eric Niebler Daniel James Beman Dawes

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