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Review Wizard Report for March 2011
by Ronald Garcia 04 Mar '11

04 Mar '11

============================================== Review Wizard Status Report for March 2011 ============================================== News ==== 1. Move Library Accepted 2. Ratio Library Accepted 3. Chrono Library Accepted 4. GIL.IO Library Accepted 5. Boost 1.46 Released New Libraries: Interval Containers Revised Libraries: Array, Asio, Bind, Concepts, Filesystem, Fusion, Graph, Hash, Iterator, Math, Meta State Machine, Optional, Pool, Program Options, Proto, Signals, Spirit, Tokenizer, Unordered, Wave Revised Tools: Boostbook, Inspect, Quickbook Open Issues =========== The following libraries have been reviewed and await reports from their review managers: * Process - reviewed February 2011; review manager: Marshall Clow. * Phoenix - reviewed March 2011; review manager: Hartmut Kaiser. The following libraries have been accepted to Boost, but have not yet been submitted to SVN: * GIL.IO - accepted January 2011; author: Christian Henning. * Move - accepted February 2011; author: Ion Gaztanaga. The following libraries have been accepted and submitted to SVN, but have not yet appeared in a release: * Geometry Library - accepted November 2009; author: Barend Gehreis et al. * Ratio - accepted October 2010; author: Vicente Botet. * GIL.IO - accepted January 2011; author: Christian Henning. * Chrono - accepted January 2011; author: Vicente Botet. The following libraries have been accepted provisionally to Boost, but have not been submitted for mini-review and full acceptance: * Switch - accepted provisionally January 2008; author: Steven Watanabe. * Log - accepted provisionally March 2010; author: Andrey Semashev. General Announcements ===================== As always, we need experienced review managers. The review schedule has grown substantially but we have few volunteers, so manage reviews if possible and if not please make sure to watch the review schedule and participate. 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 cmu dot edu" and "phillips at mps dot ohio-state dot edu" 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 before we do that, 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) * Pimpl (M) * Endian * Conversion (M) * Sorting (M) * AutoBuffer (M) * Convert * Containers * Type Traits Extensions * Lockfree (M) * Fiber (M) * Quaternions, Vectors, Matrices (M) * Locale * Context * Stopwatches * Autoindex * Variadic Macro Data (M) ``(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. Pimpl ----- :Author: Vladimir Batov :Review Manager: Needed :Download: | `Boost Vault <http://www.boost-consulting.com/vault/index.php?action=downloadfile&fil…>`__ | http://www.ddj.com/cpp/205918714 (documentation) :Description: The Pimpl idiom is a simple yet robust technique to minimize coupling via the separation of interface and implementation and then implementation hiding. This library provides a convenient yet flexible and generic deployment technique for the Pimpl idiom. It's seemingly complete and broadly applicable, yet minimal, simple and pleasant to use. Endian ------ :Author: Beman Dawes :Review Manager: Joel Falcou :Download: http://svn.boost.org/svn/boost/sandbox/endian/ :Description: Conversion ---------- :Author: Vicente Botet :Review Manager: Needed :Download: `Boost Vault <http://www.boostpro.com/vault/index.php?action=downloadfile&filename=co…>`__ :Description: Generic explicit conversion between unrelated types. Boost.Conversion provides: * a generic ``convert_to`` function which can be specialized by the user to make explicit conversion between unrelated types. * a generic ``assign_to`` function which can be specialized by the user to make explicit assignation between unrelated types. * conversion between ``std::complex`` of explicitly convertible types. * conversion between ``std::pair`` of explicitly convertible types. * conversion between ``boost::optional`` of explicitly convertible types. * conversion between ``boost::rational`` of explicitly convertible types. * conversion between ``boost::interval`` of explicitly convertible types. * conversion between ``boost::chrono::time_point`` and ``boost::ptime``. * conversion between ``boost::chrono::duration`` and ``boost::time_duration``. Sorting ------- :Author: Steven Ross :Review Manager: Needed :Download: `Boost Vault <http://www.boostpro.com/vault/index.php?action=downloadfile&filename=al…>`__ :Description: A grouping of 3 templated hybrid radix/comparison-based sorting algorithms that provide superior worst-case and average-case performance to std::sort: integer_sort, which sorts fixed-size data types that support a rightshift (default of >>) and a comparison (default of <) operator. float_sort, which sorts standard floating-point numbers by safely casting them to integers. string_sort, which sorts variable-length data types, and is optimized for 8-bit character strings. All 3 algorithms have O(n(k/s + s)) runtime where k is the number of bits in the data type and s is a constant, and limited memory overhead (in the kB for realistic inputs). In testing, integer_sort varies from 35% faster to 2X as fast as std::sort, depending on processor, compiler optimizations, and data distribution. float_sort is roughly 70% faster than std::sort. string_sort is roughly 2X as fast as std::sort. AutoBuffer ---------- :Author: Thorsten Ottosen :Review Manager: Robert Stewart :Download: http://www.cs.aau.dk/~nesotto/boost/auto_buffer.zip :Description: Boost.AutoBuffer provides a container for efficient dynamic, local buffers. Furthermore, the container may be used as an alternative to std::vector, offering greater flexibility and sometimes better performance. Convert -------------- :Author: Vladimir Batov :Review Manager: Edward Diener :Download: `Boost Vault <http://www.boostpro.com/vault/index.php?action=downloadfile&filename=bo…>`__ :Description: The Convert library takes the approach of boost::lexical_cast in the area of string-to-type and type-to-string conversions, builds on the past boost::lexical_cast experience and advances that conversion functionality further to additionally provide: * throwing and non-throwing conversion-failure behavior; * support for the default value to be returned when conversion fails; * two types of the conversion-failure check -- basic and better/safe; * formatting support based on the standard I/O Streams and the standard (or user-defined) I/O Stream-based manipulators (like std::hex, std::scientific, etc.); * locale support; * support for boost::range-compliant char and wchar_t-based string containers; * no DefaultConstructibility requirement for the Target type; * consistent framework to uniformly incorporate any type-to-type conversions. It is an essential tool with applications making extensive use of configuration files or having to process/prepare considerable amounts of data in, say, XML, etc. Containers ---------- :Author: Ion Gaztanaga :Review Manager: John Maddock :Download: `Boost Vault <http://www.boostpro.com/vault/index.php?action=downloadfile&filename=bo…>`__ :Documentation: `Boost Sandbox <http://svn.boost.org/svn/boost/sandbox/move/libs/container/doc/html/index.h…>`__ :Description: Boost.Container library implements several well-known containers, including STL containers. The aim of the library is to offers advanced features not present in standard containers or to offer the latest standard draft features for compilers that comply with C++03. Type Traits Extensions -------------------------- :Author: Frederic Bron :Review Manager: Joel Falcou :Download: `Boost Vault <http://www.boostpro.com/vault/index.php?action=downloadfile&filename=ty…>`__ :Description: The purpose of the addition is to add type traits to detect if types T and U are comparable in the sense of <, <=, >, >=, == or != operators, i.e. if t<u has a sens when t is of type T and u of type U (same for <=, >, >=, ==, !=). The following traits are added: is_equal_to_comparable<T,U> is_greater_comparable<T,U> is_greater_equal_comparable<T,U> is_less_comparable<T,U> is_less_equal_comparable<T,U> is_not_equal_to_comparable<T,U> The names are based on the corresponding names of the standard template library (<functional> header, section 20.3.3 of the standard). The code has the following properties: * returns true if t<u is meaningful and returns a value convertible to bool * returns false if t<u is meaningless. * fails with compile time error if t<u is meaningful and returns void (a possibility to avoid compile time error would be to return true with an operator, trick but this has little sens as returning false would be better) Lockfree ------------------ :Author: Tim Blechmann :Review Manager: Needed :Download: `Boost Vault <http://www.boostpro.com/vault/index.php?action=downloadfile&filename=bo…>`__ :Documentation: http://tim.klingt.org/boost_lockfree/ :Description: Lockfree provides implementations of lock-free data structures. Lock-free data structures can be accessed by multiple threads without the necessity of blocking synchronization primitives such as guards. Lock-free data structures can be used in real-time systems, where blocking algorithms may lead to high worst-case execution times, to avoid priority inversion, or to increase the scalability for multi-processor machines. Lockfree provides: * boost::lockfree::fifo, a lock-free fifo queue * boost::lockfree::stack, a lock-free stack Fiber ----- :Author: Oliver Kowalke :Review Manager: Needed :Download: `Boost Vault <http://www.boostpro.com/vault/index.php?action=downloadfile&filename=bo…>`__ :Description: C++ Library for launching fibers (micro-threads) and synchronizing data between the fibers. Quaternions, Vectors, Matrices ------------------------------ :Author: Emil Dotchevski :Review Manager: Needed :Download: http://www.revergestudios.com/boost-qvm/ :Description: QVM defines a set of generic functions and operator overloads for working with quaternions, vectors and matrices of static size. The library also defines vector and matrix data types, however it allows users to introduce their own types by specializing the q_traits, v_traits and m_traits templates. Locale ------ :Author: Artyom Beilis :Review Manager: Chad Nelson :Download: https://sourceforge.net/projects/cppcms/files/boost_locale/boost_locale_for… :Description: The Locale library provides powerful tools that extend existing built-in C++ localization facilities in a Unicode-aware way. Context ------- :Author: Oliver Kowalke :Review Manager: Vicente Botet :Download: `Boost Vault <http://www.boostpro.com/vault/index.php?action=downloadfile&filename=bo…>`__ :Description: Context provides the ability to switch between different user-level context and is intended to be the basis for a higher abstraction like coroutine and fiber. A user-level context represents the current execution state, including all registers and CPU flags, the instruction pointer, the stack pointer. boost::context encapsulates such a user-level context and is able to store/restore its associated user-level context. This allows multiple execution paths running on a single thread using a sort of cooperative scheduling (in contrast a thread is preemptively scheduled) - the running boost::context decides explicitly when its yields to allow another boost::context to run (user-level context switching). A context can only run on a single thread at any point in time but may be migrated between thread. Stopwatches ----------- :Author: Vicente Botet :Review Manager: Anthony Williams :Download: `Boost Vault <http://www.boostpro.com/vault/index.php?action=downloadfile&filename=st…>`__ :Description: On top of the standard facilities of Boost.Chrono, Stopwatches provides: * Stopwatches: A facility to measure elapsed time with the ability to start, stop, suspend, or resume measurement. * Stopwatch concept * Scoped helper classes allowing to pairwise start/stop operations, suspend/resume and resume/suspend a Stopwatch. * stopwatch, model of Stopwatch capturing elapsed Clock times. * stopwatch_accumulator, model of Stopwatch capturing accumulated elapsed Clock times. * Stopclocks: a complete time reporting package that can be invoked in a single line of code. * stopwatch_reporter, convenient reporting to an output stream (including wide char streams) of the elapsed time of models of Stopwatch results. * stopclock<Clock> shortcut of stopwatch_reporter<stopwatch<Clock>> AutoIndex (Tool) ---------------- :Author: John Maddock :Review Manager: Daniel James :Download: `Boost Vault <http://www.boostpro.com/vault/index.php?action=downloadfile&filename=au…>`__ :Documentation: `Boost Sandbox <http://svn.boost.org/svn/boost/sandbox/tools/auto_index/doc/html/index.html>`__ :Description: AutoIndex is a tool for taking the grunt work out of indexing a Boostbook/Docbook document (perhaps generated by your Quickbook file mylibrary.qbk, and perhaps using also Doxygen autodoc) that describes C/C++ code. Traditionally, in order to index a Docbook document you would have to manually add a large amount of <indexterm> markup: in fact one <indexterm> for each occurrence of each term to be indexed. Instead AutoIndex will automatically scan one or more C/C++ header files and extract all the function, class, macro and typedef names that are defined by those headers, and then insert the <indexterm>s into the Docbook XML document for you. Variadic Macro Data ------------------- :Author: Edward Diener :Review Manager: Needed :Download: `Boost Sandbox <http://svn.boost.org/svn/boost/sandbox/variadic_macro_data/>`__ :Description: The variadic_macro_data library adds support and functionality for variadic macros to Boost as well as integrating variadic macros with the Boost PP library without changing the latter library in any way. Libraries under development =========================== See http://svn.boost.org/trac/boost/wiki/LibrariesUnderConstruction for a current listing of libraries under development.

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[boost] [xint] Boost.XInt formal review
by Vladimir Prus 02 Mar '11

02 Mar '11

Boosters, the formal review of the Boost.XInt library, by Chad Nelson, starts now and will run through March 11. The documentation for the current version is available at: http://www.oakcircle.com/xint_docs/ The source code is available via Subversion at: http://svn.boost.org/svn/boost/sandbox/xint or can be downloaded at: http://www.boostpro.com/vault/index.php?action=downloadfile&filename=xint.z… Here are the important points: 1. All comments are appreciated. Even if you don't have the time for in-depth study of everything, comments on parts of the library are welcome. In particular, if you are already using logging in your applications and have specialized requirements, you might want to directly check how the proposed library handles them. 2. The reviews and all comments should be submitted to the developers list, boost(a)lists.boost.org and the email should have "[xint]" prefix in the subject to make sure it's not missed. The deadline for reviews is 23:59, March 11, PST, or 2:59, March 12, EST, or 7:59 March 12, UK time, 10:59, March 12 MSK 3. Please explicitly state in your review whether the library should be accepted. 4. The general review checklist is provided below: - What is your evaluation of the design? - What is your evaluation of the implementation? - What is your evaluation of the documentation? - What is your evaluation of the potential usefulness of the library? - Did you try to use the library? With what compiler? Did you have any problems? - How much effort did you put into your evaluation? A glance? A quick reading? In-depth study? - Are you knowledgeable about the problem domain? Thanks, Volodya -- Vladimir Prus Mentor Graphics +7 (812) 677-68-40 _______________________________________________ Unsubscribe & other changes: http://lists.boost.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/boost

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[Review] Phoenix V3: Mini-review ends March 2nd
by Hartmut Kaiser 02 Mar '11

02 Mar '11

This is just a friendly reminder that the mini-review of Phoenix V3 (written and submitted by Thomas Heller) ends tomorrow, March 2nd 2011. If you are planning to submit a review, please do so asap. If you need more time for your review, please get in direct contact with me. Regards Hartmut Review Manager --------------- http://boost-spirit.com

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Boost release 1.46.0 available
by Beman Dawes 22 Feb '11

22 Feb '11

Release 1.46.0 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 includes 1 new library (Interval Container Library) as well as updates to many existing libraries. For details, including download links, see http://www.boost.org/users/news/version_1_46_0 The release can also be downloaded directly from SourceForge. See http://sourceforge.net/projects/boost/files/ 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

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[Review] Phoenix V3: Mini-review starts February 20th
by Hartmut Kaiser 21 Feb '11

21 Feb '11

Hi all, Thomas Heller worked hard to address the outstanding issues of the original Phoenix review. He ported Phoenix to Boost.Proto. As mandated by the original Boost review, we will conduct a mini-review of his Phoenix V3 library. This mini-review starts today, February 20th, 2011 and ends on March 2nd, 2011. ------------------ About the library: The Phoenix library enables FP techniques such as higher order functions, lambda (unnamed functions), currying (partial function application) and lazy evaluation in C++. The focus is more on usefulness and practicality than purity, elegance and strict adherence to FP principles. Phoenix is a very important infrastructure library. It is currently a utility library included with Spirit V2 and therefore is already available for years from the latest Boost distributions (headers: $BOOST_ROOT/boost/spirit/home/phoenix, docs: $BOOST_ROOT/libs/spirit/phoenix, or http://www.boost.org/doc/libs/1_45_0/libs/spirit/phoenix/index.html) ------------------ The code of new Phoenix V3 (that's what we mini-review) can be found at: https://svn.boost.org/svn/boost/sandbox/SOC/2010/phoenix3/ the documentation is at: http://svn.boost.org/svn/boost/sandbox/SOC/2010/phoenix3/libs/phoenix/doc/ht ml/index.html ------------------ Here are the questions raised during the initial review of Phoenix in September 2008 (see here: http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.lib.boost.devel/180753) <quote> We will have a mini review before Phoenix gets merged to SVN to make sure whether the feedback from the v2 review was accommodated. Additionally this review will have to discuss: - the breaking interface changes from v2 - the migration path from boost::bind and lambda to Phoenix - how the interoperability with std::bind is solved (result_of semantics) - C++0x features such as rvalue references and variadic templates - the new extensibility mechanism - unified placeholders and interoperability issues with other Proto-based DSELs (such as Spirit.Qi, Spirit.Karma, and Xpressive) - compile times </quote> Please note that Phoenix already has been accepted as a Boost library. We don't vote about that anymore. The purpose of this mini-review is to discuss if the newly rewritten Phoenix V3 addresses the outstanding issues from the main review. In the end I will have to make the decision whether to include the new library into SVN trunk. I really hope to see your participation in the discussions on the Boost mailing lists! Regards Hartmut Review Manager --------------- http://boost-spirit.com

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[Boost-users] Subject: Formal Review of Proposed Boost.Process library starts tomorrow
by Marshall Clow 07 Feb '11

07 Feb '11

It's my pleasure to announce that the review of Boris Schäling's Process library starts tomorrow, February 7th and lasts until February 20, 2011, unless an extension occurs. What is it? =========== Boost.Process is a library to manage system processes. It can be used to: • create child processes • run shell commands • setup environment variables for child processes • setup standard streams for child processes (and other streams on POSIX platforms) • communicate with child processes through standard streams (synchronously or asynchronously) • wait for processes to exit (synchronously or asynchronously) • terminate processes Getting the library =================== The library is available at: http://www.highscore.de/boost/gsoc2010/process.zip with documentation at: http://www.highscore.de/boost/gsoc2010/ There was a quite involved "informal review" on the mailing list this past summer. That thread is archived here: http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.lib.boost.devel/207594 Writing a review ================ If you feel this is an interesting library, then please submit your review to the developer list (preferably), or to the review manager (me!) Here are some questions you might want to answer in your review: - What is your evaluation of the design? - What is your evaluation of the implementation? - What is your evaluation of the documentation? - What is your evaluation of the potential usefulness of the library? - Did you try to use the library? With what compiler? Did you have any problems? - How much effort did you put into your evaluation? A glance? A quick - reading? In-depth study? - Are you knowledgeable about the problem domain? And finally, every review should answer this question: - Do you think the library should be accepted as a Boost library? Be sure to say this explicitly so that your other comments don't obscure your overall opinion. -- Marshall Review Manager for the proposed Boost.Process library _______________________________________________ Boost-users mailing list Boost-users(a)lists.boost.org http://lists.boost.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/boost-users

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[Review][Move] Boost.Move Review Results
by Michael Caisse 01 Feb '11

01 Feb '11

---------------------------- Executive Summary ---------------------------- Ion Gaztañagas' Boost.Move library was reviewed from May 10th, 2010 through May 24th, 2010. The original review manager was OvermindDL1 who later went missing. Eleven individuals joined the discussion with the author. Six reviews were submitted: - 5 reviews ACCEPT - 1 review CONDITIONALLY ACCEPT Ion indicated he would meet the "conditional requirements" which easily satisfies a community vote of: Boost.Move library ACCEPTED ---------------------------- Overview ---------------------------- The Boost.Move library is a highly anticipated addition to the Boost collection. The primary motivation is to introduce usable move functionality in "a portable syntax between C++0x and C++03 compilers"; however, as Vicente Botet articulated, "Most people think that this is an emulation library, but it is more than that as it implements most of the C++0x Move semantics classes and functions." Reviewers' comments: - "This library is long overdue!" [Terry Golubiewski] - "The tutorial is well written." [Vicente Botet] - "Compared to my adobe based move implementation, I think yours is superior." [Daniel James] - "There is a lot of ingenuity in making the move emulation work, and Ion has made it very accessible and managed to make differences between C++03 and C++0x vanish behind macros and free functions." [Jeff Hellrung] An active discussion included: - exposing boost::rv<T> publicly - The merits of fully defining requirements of boost::rv<T>& - Duplicated functionality found in MPL and Type Traits - The necessity for two emulation modes - The merits of macros - Library author usage of Boost.Move - Non-throwing move constructors - Various potentially useful type traits - Other move implementations While it is unfortunate that a timely review result was not published, it did provide an opportunity to discuss some of the concerns raised in the review with actual users of the library. One such concern was the "two emulation modes." At some point in the discussions it became classified as "Safe vs. Fast". When coined with that bias "safe" would be the preference; however, further investigation and inquiries of actual users showed the "fast" version is perfectly acceptable as the default. Additionally, "safe" is a misnomer considering that one mode is not any safer than the other. Each mode has benefits and limitations as enumerated by Ion in the documentation and review responses. The past six months of use would indicate that defaulting to the "fast" version, as preferred by Ion, is in practice a good decision. Thank you Ion for this well thought out and excellent submittal. Thank you reviewers for expending time and energy to further Boost. Without those who are dedicated to review submitted libraries, the entire process and Boost itself falls apart. The community will benefit from the effort each of you put into this library. Best regards - Michael Caisse ---------------------------- Summary of changes ---------------------------- The following changes are planned based on discussions from the review: -- Conditional Acceptance -- 1. "Two Emulation Mode" documentation typos must be resolved. The descriptions, requirements and limitations need to be perfectly clear for the end user. -- Other Issues -- 1. The class rv should be public and documented. 2. is_movable should be renamed and the documentation clarified. It should only be enabled in C++03. A possible alternative name is has_move_emulation_enabled. 3. Nearly all reviewers voiced a preference that the move library should use existing functionality from MPL and TypeTraits libraries. While on one hand this creates a dependency between move and other libraries it results in reuse of accepted and well tested libraries. If a non-coupling option is also provided, it should not be the default. 4. Additional traits discussed. Resolution: add to TypeTraits library as actual use-cases are found. 5. Provide a boost/move.hpp that includes boost/move/move.hpp 6. Document the interaction of the two emulation modes. 7. Include example for making a container "movable". 8. Two emulation modes - Ion was hopeful that reviewers would have a uniform opinion that would result in a single mode. The trade-offs identified by Ion in the documentation were apparent to all reviewers; however, different conclusions were drawn and consensus was not met. The granularity of control was a common issue with nearly all reviewers. Therefore, keep both emulation modes with Optimized as the default and the granularity of control at or more "local level" than the macro provides (class level). 9. emulation_limitations.html: s/overaloading/overloading/ 10. Fully qualify enable_if ( ::boost::emable_if ) 11. Optimized version of forward should use identity so it will not try to deduce T. 12. Make sure required headers are mentioned for tutorials. 13. is_class in is_movable template< class T> struct is_movable : mpl::and_< is_class<T>, mpl::not_< is_rvalue_reference<T> >, is_convertible< T, rv<T>& > > {}; - or - another solution to is_movable problems with references. 14. On throwing move constructors, Ion should follow as close to the standard's behaviour as possible. This can be revisited after the initial release since it is a performance optimization. -- Michael Caisse Object Modeling Designs www.objectmodelingdesigns.com

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[CfP] Reminder: 5th Annual BoostCon, Aspen (CO, USA), May 15-20, 2011
by Hartmut Kaiser 30 Jan '11

30 Jan '11

Please note the extended deadline: February 10th, 2011 ------------------ Please distribute. ------------------ 5TH ANNUAL BOOST CONFERENCE 2011 Aspen CO, USA, May 15 - 20, 2011, www.boostcon.com CALL FOR PARTICIPATION We invite you to submit session proposals to the 5th Annual Boost Conference: BoostCon 2011 (Aspen CO, USA, May 15 - 20, 2011). Traditionally the main face-to-face event for all things Boost (www.boost.org) BoostCon 2011 will present leading speakers from the whole C++ community. From using the Boost libraries to writing and maintaining them, from evangelizing to deploying Boost within your organization, from infrastructure and process to vision and mission, and the new C++ Standard, BoostCon brings together the sessions, the colleagues, and the inspiration to support your work with C++ and Boost in particular for the next year. To reflect the breadth of the Boost community, the conference includes sessions aimed at three constituencies: Boost end-users, hard-core Boost library and tool developers, and academics focusing on research. The program fosters interaction and engagement within and across those groups, with an emphasis on hands-on, participatory sessions. SESSION TOPICS Topics of interest include, but are not restricted to, the following: * General tutorial sessions introducing one or more Boost libraries * In-depth sessions on using specific Boost libraries * Case studies on using Boost * Experts panels * Advanced sessions on implementation techniques used within Boost libraries * C++0x and how it changes life for users and library writers * Development workshops to extend or enhance existing Boost libraries * Workshops on design process * Infrastructure workshops such as Build tools, Website, Testing * Concepts and Generic Programming * Hardware and infrastructure presentations focused on how libraries can make better use of the technology * Software development tools and their application to C++ and or Boost * Other topics likely to be of great interest to Boost users and developers Interactive and collaborative sessions are encouraged, as this is the nature of both the on-line Boost community and the style of learning and participation that has proven most successful at such events. Sessions can be tutorial based, with an emphasis on interaction and participant involvement, or workshop based, whether hands-on programming or paper-based, discussion-driven collaborative work. SESSION FORMATS Presentations ------------- Presentations focus on a practitioner's ideas and experience with anything relevant to Boost and Boost users. Panels ------------- Panels feature three or four people presenting their ideas and experiences relating to Boost's relevant, controversial, emerging, or unresolved issues. Panels may be conducted in several ways, such as comparative, analytic, or historic. Tutorials ------------- Tutorials are sessions at which instructors teach conference participants specific Boost-relevant skills. Workshops ------------- Workshops provide an active arena for advancements in Boost-relevant topics. Workshops provide the opportunity for experienced practitioners to develop new ideas about a topic of common interest and experience. Author's Corner Presentations ------------- These were introduced at BoostCon 2008, and were a great success. They are short (30 minute) sessions, focusing on tips on usage and design. In addition, we're looking to uncover the hidden design gems in Boost libraries. Tool Vendors Presentations ------------- We actively encourage tool vendors and ISP's to submit proposals for a special Tool Vendors Session Track aimed at products related to Boost and C++ (compilers, libraries, tools, etc.). Other formats may also be of interest. Don't hold back a proposal just because it doesn't fit into a pigeonhole. SUBMITTING A PROPOSAL Standard Sessions are 90 minutes. You may submit a proposal for fractions or multiples of 90-minutes. Fractional proposals will be grouped into 90 minute sessions covering related topics. Longer sessions, such as tutorials and classes, will be assigned 90 minute, three hour (i.e. half day), or six hour (i.e. full day) time slots. Please include: * The working title. * Type of session: presentation, panel, tutorial, workshop, authors corner, vendor track, other. * A paragraph or two describing the topic covered, suitable for the conference web site. * Proposed length: 10-20 minute short talks, 45 minutes, 90 minutes, half day, full day. * Alternate lengths, if you are willing to make adjustments: 10-20 minute short-talks, 45 minutes, 90 minutes, half-day, full day. * Audience: users, developers, both. * Level: basic, intermediate, advanced. * A biography, suitable for the conference web site. * Your contact information (will not be made public). SUBMISSION DETAILS All submissions have to be done through the EasyChair conference management system: http://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=boostcon2011. If you have not already registered at EasyChair, you will need to do so in order to submit your proposal. All submissions will go through a peer review process. Authors are invited (but are not required) to submit PDF versions of full papers of up to 10 pages in ACM conference proceedings format (see http://www.acm.org/sigs/publications/proceedings-templates) The full papers are not required unless you want them published in the proceedings. All accepted proposals will be made available in the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Digital Library (approval pending). Best papers, after further reviews, will be considered to be book chapters or journal articles in a renowned journal. The session materials go on the BoostCon website and will be available to attendees. For general information on the BoostCon 2011 paper submission or the scope of technical papers solicited, please refer to the conference website at www.boostcon.com. For any other questions about the submission process or paper format, please contact the Program Committee at boostcon2011(a)easychair.com. If you have any technical problems with EasyChair, please contact EasyChair for help. Note: Presenters must agree to grant a non-exclusive perpetual license to publish submitted materials, either electronically or in print, in any media related to BoostCon. IMPORTANT DATES New proposal submissions due: January 10th, 2011. Proposals decisions sent (tentative program): February 17th, 2011. Fully scheduled program available: February 25th, 2011. Session materials due: April 15th, 2011. Hartmut Kaiser: hartmut.kaiser(a)gmail.com (Program Committee Chair) David Abrahams: dave(a)boostpro.com (Conference Chair) On behalf of the conference organizers

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[Review][GIL] Boost.GIL IO and Toolbox extensions have been ACCEPTED into Boost
by Mateusz Loskot 27 Jan '11

27 Jan '11

Dear All, The formal review of IO and Toolbox extensions for Boost.GIL [1] ended on December 17th, 2010 [2] The review subject was not a standalone library but a part of whole - an extension to existing Boost.GIL. The review result: ACCEPTED Number of received discussion and feedback posts is ~140. I consider most of them in-topic, significant and also insightful. Reviewers pointed issues already known from previous discussions on the mailing list as well as new topics regarding the design and implementation of the extensions. Also, issues related to the library itself (Boost.GIL) were addressed. Some of them could be considered ideas for future works and improvements. It is remarkable, most (if not all) of the discussions were focused on the IO extension. None of the submitted reviews include comments to the Toolbox extension. Formally, the review concluded with 1 NO and 7 YES votes. Some of the YES votes are considered as conditional and number of changes were requested by the reviewers. The following changes should be addressed before the extensions appear in the Boost mainstream: 1. Documentation is adequate, but requires clean-up and fixing of lots of typos. 2. Additional tests are added to exercise currently untested error cases that result in a longjmp should be added. They should pass on all platforms officially supported by Boost. 3. Make sure the test images are license-free. If the license status is unknown, change them to other license-free images. 4. The requirements for adding new file formats / backends to be made more explicit. This means defining concept for a file format reader/writer, etc. and adding new file formats would constitute providing models for these concepts. 5. Support for reading images whose file format is unknown at compile time. That involves the ability to register file formats / backends, associate them with given extensions and then call the appropriate reader based on the extension of the file name. 6. Support for different backends for the same image formats. It appears that this can be done simply the same way a file format can be extended, i.e. have "png_libpng" and "png_lodepng" tags. 7. Support for efficient reading/writing of parts of images that are too large to fit in memory. There are two ways to proceed: one is to have an input/output iterator that enforces sequential access, and another is to allow for user-driven access at the cost of sometimes severe performance. The reviewers also posted a few suggestions that could improve quality of the two extensions, 1. Name of functions like read_int8, read_int16, read_int32, write_int8 in Device models suggest they return and accept signed integers, but they return and accept unsigned integers. The naming could be improved.. 2. Do some profiling and performance optimization of the most common formats. Add some test cases to measure speed of common scenarios. 3. Make sure the test cases provide complete coverage. For example, set a breakpoint in every method, every switch statement and branch. Run your tests and remove any breakpoints that are encountered. Look at the breakpoints that were not hit and add tests for them. 4. It would be great if Christian and Domagoj could join their efforts to take the best of their libraries (IO extension implementations) to the IO extension included in Boost.GIL and collaborate for the advanced features discussed in reviews. I would like to thank Edd Dawson, Zach Laine, Domagoj Saric, Roland Bock, Lubomir Bourdev, Tom Brinkman, Phil Endecott, Kenny Riddile for reviews and others who participated in discussions. Thanks also go to Christian Henning for great work. I would like conclude recalling short comment Lubomir Bourdev included in his review. In my opinion, it is a good summary of the Boost.GIL IO and Toolbox review and generally all discussions on this subject: *** The problem with I/O is that you can never declare success. All we can hope for is push the boundary as much as we can, and leave the rest for the next update. *** [1] http://lists.boost.org/boost-announce/2010/11/0273.php [2] http://lists.boost.org/boost-announce/2010/12/0279.php Best regards, -- Mateusz Loskot, http://mateusz.loskot.net Charter Member of OSGeo, http://osgeo.org Member of ACCU, http://accu.org

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[Review][Chrono] Boost.Chrono has been ACCEPTED into Boost
by Anthony Williams 05 Jan '11

05 Jan '11

The following message is a courtesy copy of an article that has been posted to gmane.comp.lib.boost.devel as well. Hi, I am pleased to announce that Boost.Chrono has been ACCEPTED into Boost. There were a reasonable number of reviews this time, and they were unanimous that Boost.Chrono should be accepted. Boost.Chrono provides the time facilities from the upcoming C++0x standard, so is an important base library. A few changes were requested by the reviewers which should be addressed before this library appears in a Boost release. I know that Vicente has already started working on some of these. The requested changes are: * The documentation needs revising to ensure everything is documented, and it is clear which time source is used for each clock type * The use of double underscores in identifiers should be stopped --- such identifiers are reserved for the implementation. * chrono::monotonic_clock will need renaming chrono::steady_clock to match the C++0x draft * the is_monotonic member of the clock types will need renaming is_steady to match the C++0x draft * Remove operator/ for dividing by a duration * Include examples for I/O in non-English languages * Remove "#if 0" blocks * Address all the "TODO" items in the source * Check the license on the time parsing code, and reimplement if the license is incompatible Apologies to the reviewers if I've missed anything. I would like to thank Vicente for submitting the library and those that took the time to write a review. Anthony -- Author of C++ Concurrency in Action http://www.stdthread.co.uk/book/ just::thread C++0x thread library http://www.stdthread.co.uk Just Software Solutions Ltd http://www.justsoftwaresolutions.co.uk 15 Carrallack Mews, St Just, Cornwall, TR19 7UL, UK. Company No. 5478976

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