August 2020 - Boost - lists.boost.org

CMake Announcement from Boost Steering Committee
by Jon Kalb 13 Aug '24

13 Aug '24

The libraries produced by the Boost community have had a greater impact on the way that the C++ community writes code than any other library implementation. The focus of the Boost community will always be on the libraries, but it is undeniable that we are dependent on and often limited by the infrastructure of our trade. Years ago, the move to Git was contentious; yet, it was required to improve development. In a similar vein our build system has become an impediment for many developers and users, existing and prospective. Therefore, we, the Steering Committee, announce to the Boost community our desire and intent to move Boost’s build system to CMake for users and developers alike. We are soliciting comments and proposals from the community to guide the process and the goals. Our desire is that the community can come to consensus by the end of the calendar year with a vision of supporting users and developers. We understand that the actual process of achieving the end goal will be long, time consuming, and not without its share of conflict. We also recognize that the Boost community is comprised of bright and passionate individuals that are eager to get involved and help get work done. The members of the Steering Committee have been encouraged by the discussions and activity surrounding CMake on the mailing lists over the years and know that many people have voiced visions. We hope that each of you rejoins the discussion to support this initiative and contributes to the common goal of improving Boost’s integration into the broader C++ ecosystem. For the Boost Steering Committee, Jon Kalb, Chair jonkalb(a)boost.org

49 200

Boost.Text is looking for a (mini-)review manager
by Zach Laine 07 Dec '22

07 Dec '22

I've made all the recommended changes to Boost.Text that came up in the review. Glen, the previous review manager, recommended a mini review of Boost.Text once I'd made those changes. If you'd like to manage the mini-review, please let me know. For everyone, including potential reviewers and review managers, here are the major changes: * All the specific review feedback issues have been addressed. * The string layer is now gone. * The text layer got a major re-work. It is now a set of template-based adaptors (basic_text<>, vs. a text typedef. etc.), which lets everyone get what they want. You can change the underlying storage type (including whatever allocator you prefer), select UTF-8 or UTF-16, and change the normalization form. Glen recommended I drop this layer, but the library is way less useful without this stuff, and these changes address all the concerns raised about the text layer in the review. The updated docs can be found here: https://tzlaine.github.io/text/doc/html/index.html Oh yeah, and I added concept constraints to the whole library when you build in C++20 mode. Zach

17 46

Adding my sorting algorithm, ska_sort, to boost, attempt 2
by Malte Skarupke 24 Nov '21

24 Nov '21

Hi everyone, I started a discussion about this in October, but at the time the maintainer of the sort library was busy, then I was busy, so now it's January... I wrote a generalized version of radix sort a couple years ago and gave a talk about it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqs87a_7zxw I would like to get a new version of that sorting algorithm into boost. It's faster than what I showed several years ago. It's also even more general and has a new interface that should be easier to extend. I uploaded the code here: https://github.com/skarupke/sort/tree/master The documentation is also already updated with new benchmark results. Let me know what's required to get this into boost. Would you like this in the form of a pull request? One of the big things that probably needs review is the interface, since radix sorting works differently than comparison based sorting. For most normal uses you just need to provide a sort key, but more complicated cases can get more complicated. I tried very hard to make everything easy, but I'd also be curious if others can come up with better ways of doing the interface. Thanks, Malte -- Malte Skarupke malteskarupke(a)fastmail.fm

8 10

[LEAF] Review Results
by Michael Caisse 09 Sep '20

09 Sep '20

I want to thank Emil for his patience for the publishing of the review results as life got in my way. Thank you Emil for submitting LEAF to be reviewed for inclusion into Boost. As an already-Boost-author, you knew what you were getting into and continued into the process. I also want to thank you for once again pushing our thoughts on error handling. -------- Result -------- This is the part everybody scrolls to the bottom to read, so let’s just put it at the top. Boost.LEAF is ACCEPTED into Boost. After the following modifications are made to the library, the repository can be transitioned to Boost for inclusion into the next release (with the release cycle timing constraints): Specify the TLS requirement sooner in the documentation. Optional usage of Boost.Config to perform all of the Boost Configy things. (further discussion on this below) Macro naming and general Boostification clean-up. -------- Reviews -------- There was a good amount of discussion about the library on both the dev and user mail lists. I want to personally thank those who got involved in the review. You make the process work! Result summary: Accept: 7 Reject: 1 No-decision: 3 The no-decision reviews provided valuable input and discussion threads. While it would be my preference to have the review authors provide a final verdict, I was grateful for the time and energy they spent with the library and formulating thoughts into emails for discussion. Some comments from reviews: “I find function preload() really great and novel. … This really makes the error reporting code brief, clean and bug-free.” “I like LEAF very much and there's a lot offered here…” “I like it.” “...it allows bridging multiple error handling strategies and usage patterns in an efficient way.” About the docs: “They look good and manage to explain hard concepts in a very approachable fashion.” “The documentation is great -- in terms of styles it's probably the best I've seen for a C++ library.” “Clear, friendly and complete.” -------------- Some Thoughts -------------- While there was overwhelming consensus that LEAF should be included into Boost, the process is not democratic. I have spent considerable time understanding the concerns raised in each of the reviews and in particular the singular rejection. Emil took time responding to each of the reviews. The exchanges were fruitful and both “conditional accept” and “reject” reviewers changed their verdicts to accept along the way. Most of the concerns were amicably resolved. I am comfortable with the design choices and implementation made by the author for the remaining items. One reviewer brought up the re-implementation of Boost.Config type facilities. This of course is a complex issue for a library with zero dependencies. The ability to simply drop the Boost.LEAF directory into a project and run is a definite plus for a specific user segment. Being able to modify a single Boost.Config repository to support WackyCompiler14 targeting LEG Core and get a bunch of libraries for the ride is also a plus. Emil and I have discussed these concerns and the best choice seems to be defaulting to zero dependencies and the option to pull in Boost.Config to provide configuration type facilities if needed. Accepting a library into Boost is as much about the library as it is bringing the author into a group. While Emil is already part of the author crowd, it was clear to me through his careful, informative, and patient responses that the addition of Boost.LEAF brings professional maturity that strengthens the community. A user with more than a year of experience with the library voted acceptance based on the “qualities of the library itself and the responsiveness and openness for feedback of its author.” Throughout the review period, Emil integrated feedback to both the documentation and code in another branch. It was wonderful to see the community provide input and the author respond so quickly to produce a better final result. Thank you Emil for your vision of better error handling and striving to bring us along! -- Michael Caisse Ciere Consulting ciere.com

3 2

ASIO: Same code for tcp, unix domain sockets (websockets via beast)
by Matthias Loy 26 Aug '20

26 Aug '20

Hello, we are implementing a service that is to be available via tcp, unix domain sockets (and websocket). Websocket might be out of scope since it is not part of asio. All those protocols are streaming protocols and should behave in the same way: read some bytes, write some bytes. I would like to have the code implemented only once to handle several protocols. Not having one for local::stream_protocol::socket and another one for ip::tcp::socket. Until now I was not able to find something like base classes that allow me to do that. I only found code that works for tcp or unix domain sockets (local). The protocol is not to be decided at compile time but on runtime. Hence I'm having problems using templates here. The documentation of async_read states that the stream has to support the AsyncReadStream concept. Is there a way to get something supporting this concept from local::stream_protocol::socket and ip::tcp::socket? Best regards, Matthias

4 3

JSON library scheduled for review
by Mateusz Loskot 25 Aug '20

25 Aug '20

Hi, A brief announcement from the review wizards: Formal review of the JSON library has been scheduled to take place between October 9 and October 18, 2020. Details and links available here https://www.boost.org/community/review_schedule.html We'd like to thank Pranam Lashkari (Boost.GIL, [Boost.]Astronomy, Boost GSoC) for volunteering to act as the review manager. Best regards, -- Mateusz Loskot, http://mateusz.loskot.net

2 2

Shallow Hal Needs A Gal!
by Vinnie Falco 25 Aug '20

25 Aug '20

And Boost.JSON needs a review manager! -- Regards, Vinnie Follow me on GitHub: https://github.com/vinniefalco

3 4

Modules
by Damian Vicino 24 Aug '20

24 Aug '20

Hi, Are there any guidelines on the use of modules inside boost? Are we planning any steps for adoption of them?

9 18

You Won't Believe This!
by Vinnie Falco 23 Aug '20

23 Aug '20

But Boost.JSON needs a Review Manager! Don't be shy now! Repository: https://github.com/cppalliance/json Documentation: http://vinniefalco.github.io/doc/json/index.html -- Regards, Vinnie Follow me on GitHub: https://github.com/vinniefalco

7 10

[release] Boost 1.74.0 Release Candidate 1
by Marshall Clow 21 Aug '20

21 Aug '20

The first release candidates for the 1.74.0 release are now available at: <https://dl.bintray.com/boostorg/release/1.74.0/source/> The SHA256 checksums are as follows: 9ea3fc8573413f4d4b2c4d448110b6cb0467df834304112e143c7edb09ae71e9 boost_1_74_0_rc1.7z 8b6c429a41f7cac1880594adf8d1d6f0cc1cf19f8980c6b86ac38ef8b3d8a4e0 boost_1_74_0_rc1.tar.bz2 a0a96a9bb3863863e034cafc825b2ddba4249c7d278b76df1277295e7c7afbf2 boost_1_74_0_rc1.tar.gz d4f31cce9d5fbd55691dc2f5fb73380e95aa66426c891ceb3ebdfc6616022842 boost_1_74_0_rc1.zip As always, the release managers would appreciate it if you download the candidate of your choice and give building it a try. Please report both success and failure, and anything else that is noteworthy. -- The Release managers

6 10