- Boost-announce - lists.boost.org

Boost review of the 'convert' library starts tomorrow May 21.
by Edward Diener 12 May '14

12 May '14

The review of the Convert library starts tomorrow Monday, May 12 and goes through Wednesday May 21. The Convert library builds on the boost::lexical_cast original design and experience and takes those conversion/transformation-related ideas further. * to be applicable to a wider range of conversion-related use-cases, * to provide a more flexible, extendible and configurable type-conversion framework. The Convert library can be cloned from GitHub at https://github.com/yet-another-user/boost.convert. The library follows the modular-boost format. Just clone it to modular-boost/libs in the 'convert' subdirectory and run 'b2 headers' in order to create a link to its header file directory in the modular-boost/boost subdirectory. The library comes with documentation in its top-level index.html or doc/html/index.html file. The library is by Vladimir Batov and is a second reiteration with a greater focus of his library that was reviewed in the past. I am Edward Diener and I am again serving as the review manager of the library. Comments, questions, and reviews will all be welcome for the library. Please try to sum up your review by answering these questions: 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: Do you think the library should be accepted as a Boost library? As always whether you do or do not feel that the library should be accepted into Boost please specify any changes you would like to see for the library to be better in your estimation.

1 0

[TypeIndex 3.0] Review Manager's Report
by Niall Douglas 04 May '14

04 May '14

Dear Boost, The second round of peer review of proposed Boost.TypeIndex finished on Wed 30th, and here is the review manager's report. My thanks to the five reviewers who took the time and trouble to submit full reviews, plus to everyone else who commented. Votes regarding acceptance: 4 voted to accept TypeIndex into Boost immediately. 1 voted to accept into Boost with conditions. Overall: I recommend immediate acceptance into Boost. Conditions: 1. No one liked the present boost::typeind namespace, almost anything else would be better. I see the namespace has already changed in the develop branch to boost::typeindex, so I think this is already solved. Other common comments: * More than one reviewer mentioned how they liked the docs. * More than one reviewer expressed a desire for an ability to programmatically parse through type specifier strings. I agree with Antony that that is another library which isn't TypeIndex (something Boost.Spirit based which works directly with mangled symbol string representations, representing them as a partial AST - preferably also with a libclang compatible backend - would be great, but that is a totally different library and TypeIndex 3.x provides extensibility for such an additional function). * More than one reviewer sought some method of preventing link if you mix up incompatible uses of TypeIndex and/or with RTTI. Niall -- Currently unemployed and looking for work in Ireland. Work Portfolio: http://careers.stackoverflow.com/nialldouglas/

1 0

[gsoc2014] This year's students announced
by Niall Douglas 22 Apr '14

22 Apr '14

Dear Boost, We are pleased to announce that the following eight students will be this year's Google Summer of Code for 2014: 1. Anton Bikineev Mentor: Christopher Kormanyos Topic:Boost.Math Generalized Hypergeometric Functions 2. Ian Forbes Mentor: Tim Blechmann Topic: Boost.Thread Scheduled Executors 3. Louis Dionne Mentor: Joel Falcou Topic: A C++11 template metaprogramming library 4. Mark Lingle Mentor: David Bellot Topic: Boost.uBlas: Optimization via Smart Templating and a Tree Optimizer class 5. Roshan Mentor: Kyle Lutz Topic: Expand and Improve Boost.Compute 6. Saksham Maheshwari Mentor: Stefan Seefeld Topic: Boost.XML - A Standard XML Library 7. Thaler Benedek Mentor: Vicente J. Botet Escriba Topic: Boost.Pipeline 8. Vinícius dos Santos Oliveira Mentor: Bjorn Reese Topic: HTTP server on Boost At US$5,000 funding per student, this represents an investment of US$40,000 into Boost by Google this year, for which we are extremely grateful. Our thanks to everyone in Google who makes this happen every year. With so few slots available from Google some very good candidates and proposals could not be selected, so if you were not selected this year, better luck next year (remember to come early!). Congratulations to the students who did make it, and our collective thanks go to the primary mentors above for taking the time this summer, as well to the secondary mentors not listed above as well as everyone who helped out with the proposal review and the ranking and voting this year. Niall & Boris --- Boost C++ Libraries Google Summer of Code 2014 admin https://svn.boost.org/trac/boost/wiki/SoC2014

1 0

Boost.Align review results
by Ahmed Charles 21 Apr '14

21 Apr '14

The review of the proposed Boost.Align library ended on April 20, 2014. The result is: Accepted with conditions. Glen and I would like to thank everyone for contributing to the review for Boost.Align. either with a review or comments in the discussions. The summary of formal votes is as follows (alphabetical order): Andrey Semashev - Yes (conditional) Antony Polukhin - Yes (conditional) Bjorn Reese - Yes Lars Viklund - Yes Michael Spencer - Yes For a total of 5 votes for acceptance and 0 votes for rejection. The conditional acceptance is based on the quality of documentation, as the feedback given on code and design has already been addressed. The conditions below are agreeable to the author: 1. QuickBook documentation should be used, following typical Boost documentation structure. 2. Additional examples should be used to make the understanding/use of the library easier. 3. Additional minor comments from the reviews should be addressed. I would like to thank Glen for making this an easy first review manager experience and I look forward to reviewing other libraries in the future.

1 0

[typeindex v3.0] Peer review begins Mon 21st ends Wed 30th
by Niall Douglas 20 Apr '14

20 Apr '14

Dear Boost, A second round of community review begins for proposed Boost.TypeIndex on Mon 21st, lasting ten days. I should apologise as it's my fault for starting another peer review straight after Boost.Align ends, however I was busy as Google Summer of Code admin until today, and I will be preparing to talk at C++ Now straight after this review ends. I hope that this doesn't affect the community's willingness to contribute to the review. Reminder of the report from the last TypeIndex v2.1 review: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/boost-list/TeiSdkRkUF0 Reminder of the original peer review announcement: http://boost.2283326.n4.nabble.com/TypeIndex-Peer-review-period-for-li brary-acceptance-begins-ending-Thurs-21st-Nov-td4654788.html Source code: https://github.com/apolukhin/type_index/zipball/master Github: https://github.com/apolukhin/type_index Documentation: http://apolukhin.github.com/type_index/index.html Changes in TypeIndex v3.0 since v2.1 (from my own review of it): 1. Documentation is hugely improved over v2.1, lots of side by side examples illustrating the differences and similarities. 2. You can now create your own custom type indices using an extensible framework. 3. boost::typeind::type_info now exports raw_name() and pretty_name() to maximise MSVC-GCC compatibility, and to solve point 1 but not point 2 in the v2.1 report. 4. The undefined behaviour trick used in v2.1 has been replaced with a cast via the placeholder type boost::typeind::detail::ctti_data which can be viewed in https://github.com/apolukhin/type_index/blob/master/include/boost/type _index/ctti_type_index.hpp. There is an explanation in the comments there about this technique's compatibility with the C++ standard. 5. TypeIndex now defines everything in the boost::typeind namespace instead of the boost namespace. So: 1. What is your evaluation of the design? 2. What is your evaluation of the implementation? 3. What is your evaluation of the documentation? 4. What is your evaluation of the potential usefulness of the library? 5. Did you try to use the library? With what compiler? Did you have any problems? 6. How much effort did you put into your evaluation? A glance? A quick reading? In-depth study? 7. Are you knowledgeable about the problem domain? And finally, every review should answer this question: 8. 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. Thanks, Niall -- Currently unemployed and looking for work in Ireland. Work Portfolio: http://careers.stackoverflow.com/nialldouglas/

1 0

Boost.Align review begins today
by Ahmed Charles 12 Apr '14

12 Apr '14

Hi all, The review of Boost.Align by Glen Fernandes commences today, Friday, 11 April, and concludes Sunday, 20 April. Boost.Align provides: 1. Function align() to align a pointer, for implementations which do not provide C++11's std::align(). 2. Functions aligned_alloc() and aligned_free() for dynamic allocation with specified alignment. { For use in place of ::operator new() and ::operator delete(). } 3. Class template aligned_allocator as an alignment-aware allocator that also allows specifying a minimum alignment. { For use in place of std::allocator. } 4. Class template aligned_allocator_adaptor to turn any existing allocator into an alignment-aware allocator that also allows specifying a minimum alignment. { For use in place of any existing allocator type. } 5. Function is_aligned() to test the alignment of a pointer. Rationale: C++11 added the ability to specify increased alignment (over-alignment) for class types. Unfortunately, ::operator new allocation functions, new expressions, and the default allocator, std::allocator, do not support dynamic memory allocation of over-aligned data. Notes: This library also meets needs in existing Boost libraries. - Boost.Smart_Ptr has its own implementation of align(). - Boost.Interprocess and Boost.Log each have their own implementation of aligned_alloc() and aligned_free(). Source: doc: http://glenfe.github.io/align git: http://github.com/glenfe/align zip: http://github.com/glenfe/align/archive/master.zip Please always state in your review whether you think the library should be accepted as a Boost library. Additionally, please consider giving feedback on the following general topics: - 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? Ahmed Charles Review Manager

1 0

Boost.Align review announcement
by Ahmed Charles 28 Mar '14

28 Mar '14

Hi everyone, The review of Boost.Align by Glen Fernandes is scheduled from Friday, April 11th to April 20th. Source: http://github.com/glenfe/align Documentation: http://glenfe.github.io/align Description: This library provides function align for implementations which do not have the C++11 standard library align function available.It provides allocation functions aligned_alloc and aligned_free as their functionality is not yet available in the C++ standard library. They use platform specific functions, if available, or use standard library functions in conjunction with align.It provides C++ allocators, class templates aligned_allocator and aligned_allocator_adaptor, which respect alignment. The first uses aligned_alloc and aligned_free while the second uses the allocator in conjunction with align.It also provides function is_aligned to test the alignment of a pointer. Rationale: C++11 added the ability to specify increased alignment (over-alignment) for class types. Unfortunately, ::operator new allocation functions, new expressions, and the default allocator, std::allocator, do not support dynamic memory allocation of over-aligned data. The aligned_alloc function can be used in place of ::operator new to specify the alignment of the memory allocated.The aligned_allocator class template can be used in place of std::allocator as an alignment-aware default allocator.The aligned_allocator_adaptor class template can be used to adapt any allocator into an alignment-aware allocator. Notes: The functionality provided by this library addresses needs in existing Boost libraries as well. Boost.SmartPtr has its own implementation of align, and Boost.Log and Boost.Interprocess have their own implementations of aligned_alloc and aligned_free. Boost List Discussion: http://lists.boost.org/Archives/boost/2014/02/211723.php Review Manager: Ahmed Charles

1 0

[GSoC 14] Request community to rank proposals
by Niall Douglas 24 Mar '14

24 Mar '14

Dear Boost Community, The Google Summer of Code 2014 proposals for Boost are in, and we would deeply appreciate the community's help in ranking the proposals according to merit before the 1st of April. To vote, the process is easy: 1. Go to this page https://www.google-melange.com/gsoc/homepage/google/gsoc2014 and click the "Log in" button under Mentors and Administrators. 2. Now click "Create Profile" on the same page. Note that even if you registered last year, you must register again in 2014. Fill in the form. Note that after submitting it drops you at "Edit Profile", which is confusing. 3. Click "My Dashboard", then "Connect with organisations". 4. Choose "Boost C++ Libraries". 5. In the message box, write this: "I am a member of the Boost community and the email(s) I normally post to boost mailing lists with is <email>" filling in the email address(es) you normally use to post to boost mailing lists. This lets us verify that you are indeed a long standing member of the Boost community. 6. Once we approve your request, you will get an email with the subject "Welcome as organisation member". You can now return to the Dashboard on the GSoC website where there will be a new item "Proposals". 7. Work your way through as many of the 42 proposals as you can. You can score them using the stars at the bottom of each proposal page, taking care to read any comments by the mentors and students if present. PLEASE try to rank some of the lowest scored proposals, every year we get a lot of people who only rank the top five and don't bother with the rest. Try to score on the basis of (i) proposal quality and your best estimate of the student's capability (ii) if the student came early to the mailing lists to ask for help writing the proposal (the mentors who helped them with their proposals have usually indicated this in the private comments) (iii) usefulness/appropriateness of the feature or work being proposed. Remember a good GSoC is more about getting promising new engineers into Boost and C++ than necessarily getting code to pass Boost peer review in a single summer. 8. Optional: If a proposal looks especially great to you and you feel able to mentor a student this year, please slide the "wish to mentor" button. Just because a proposal already has willing mentors does NOT mean you should not add yourself - we have at least two mentors with many attached very highly ranked proposals and we really don't want to have to reject an outstanding proposal just because we can't find the mentors for it as no mentor can realistically mentor more than two projects simultaneously. As you know, Google Summer of Code is usually worth $35,000 - $50,000 to Boost each year, and a successful GSoC raises our visibility and reputation in the wider open source community. Our thanks to you in advance for taking the time to vote. Niall Douglas Boris Schäling --- Boost C++ Libraries Google Summer of Code 2014 admin https://svn.boost.org/trac/boost/wiki/SoC2014

1 0

NT² 3.0 and Boost.SIMD - Stable release
by Joel Falcou 15 Feb '14

15 Feb '14

The first stable release of the 3.x series of MetaScale’s open-source software is available: NT² 3.0. It also includes its spin-off project, Boost.SIMD (not yet a Boost library). Many Issues have been closed since last beta. The main focus of this release cycle was to fix performances issues and to stabilize some parts of the API. Next step will be to separate NT2 and Boost.SIMD into separate repositories, thus making one more step toward Boost.SIMD submission into review. [ http://www.metascale.org/nt%C2%B2-3-0-and-boost-simd ] *Changes & Bug Fixes:* - Major performance improvements in both libraries - Added experimental support for the HPX runtime for parallelization on shared memory systems - Optimizations of many elemental functions, in particuler log/ex, frexp/ldexp and cbrt - More advanced shuffle pattern recognition for SIMD - Fixed issues with Visual Studio 2013 - More functions are force-inlined to ensure good performance - New functions for conversion between types and mixing of vectors of different sizes - Demo applications usable as benchmarks - Better handling of errors when an unsupported function is called - New API for custom memory allocators Full changelog is available at https://github.com/MetaScale/nt2/releases/tag/3.0.0. *How to get it ?* - Source and binary packages can be downloaded here: http://nt2.metascale.org/downloads - The release is also available on Github : https://github.com/MetaScale/nt2/releases - The main master branch is still under development : https://github.com/MetaScale/nt2

1 0

Attn: We need GSoC 2014 mentors for Boost!
by Niall Douglas 08 Feb '14

08 Feb '14

Dear Boost community, We are now just five days away from the closing date for Google Summer of Code 2014 registration. Last year's GSoC was a huge success, with Google funding work on Boost to the tune of $35,000 and paying over $8,000 in costs for three representatives of Boost to attend the GSoC mentor's summit at Google HQ. As part of filling in our application for 2014, we must supply to Google a list of potential GSoC mentors and potential GSoC projects for summer 2014. We do NOT want a repeat of 2012 when our application was rejected due to an insufficiently long list of prospective mentors and projects! At the time of writing, we have just *eight* prospective mentors, and we need more to be sure of being approved by Google! Therefore, if you think yourself able to mentor a student doing some work on Boost this summer, *please* consider adding a description of the proposed work item and your name to the list at https://svn.boost.org/trac/boost/wiki/SoC2014. If you want to know more about mentoring a Google Summer of Code funded student work before you nominate yourself, please feel free to ask on the main Boost developers mailing list boost(a)lists.boost.org. Thank you in advance for your time. Niall Douglas (Boost Google Summer of Code admin) Boris Schäling (Boost Google Summer of Code backup admin)

1 0