- Boost - lists.boost.org

Mailing list outage
by David Abrahams 08 Jun '05

08 Jun '05

-- Dave Abrahams Boost Consulting www.boost-consulting.com

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RE: [boost] Re: Longer review period
by Brian Braatz 08 Jun '05

08 Jun '05

> -----Original Message----- > From: boost-bounces(a)lists.boost.org [mailto:boost-bounces@lists.boost.org] > On Behalf Of Edward Diener > > I know I have never given a review but I feel that a 20 day period for > reviews rather than a 10 day period for reviews would give potential > reviewers, like me, a more comfortable zone in which to seriously look > at potential Boost software and give one. I think that would be a good > compromise between the present 10 day period, which seems to quick and a > full month period which seems too long. > > _______________________________________________ [Brian Braatz Writes:] Very much agree. The longer time will allow for some of us to FIND the time to participate. Additionally- I would like to suggest that if the period is extended, that the review manager periodically remind people of how much time is left. (if the discussion happens to die down) (i.e. every Monday morning or what not)

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RealNetworks is using boost
by Sebastien Martel 08 Jun '05

08 Jun '05

Hello boosters, Name of the product: Rhapsody Name of the company: Real Networks Description of the Application and the Service: The Rhapsody Music Service allows its subscribers to legally download/transfer/burn over a million songs. The Rhapsody client software was built with many Boost libraries. URL of company and service: http://www.real.com/ Boost libraries used used with comments: boost.format Boost.Format is top notch. Using it is a bliss. boost.lexical_cast Quite useful. However pedantic use of streams to execute the conversions of basic types to/from strings is terrible. Had to be careful not to use in performance sensitive areas. I really wished there were a way to achieve performance comparable to c-runtime functions for ato* and *toa. boost.functional boost.function boost.bind These three libraries, along with smart pointer are the most used in our application. I could not imagine not having them handy. boost.smart_ptr Hands down, the most useful, and used library of the lot! boost.filesystem Not so happy here. This library looks promising, but there are a sum of little issues that makes me wonder if I should avoid using it in the future. 1- There is a bug on win98 when iterating a root drive. I sent a mail [http://lists.boost.org/MailArchives/boost-users/msg10391.php] about the problem on boost-users with a fix and never received a response. I might get better results by rephrasing the mail. 2- short-hand to build native paths using operator "/" is broken if you don't set the default name check to boost::filesystem::native. 3- What we really need is the reverse of the default library mode : have the library always work with native name-check and at the programmer's control, switch it to portable paths. There are WAY too many cases where we want to only work in native mode and portable path is the exception. 4- Lack of wstring/unicode support will become a problem very soon. 6- as noted in the do-list : "Windows: Some files seem to be poisoned to the point where you can't even do is_directory() on them without an access error. For example, pagefile.sys. Should directory_iterator ignore these files?" This is really a problem. A user must be very careful for exceptions when using iterators. They will throw. Overall this library, in it's current state, isn't a good fit for us. boost.date_time Simple to use, effective, does the job. I love the flexible input string parsing facilities, and the human readable ISO output. I created utilities to tie in with boost.filesystem so I can perform date_time calculations on files. Also had to create a layer to interface nicely with native locale date/time conversions api. I am sure every users of date_time that had to build UI apps ended up writing similar facilities. boost.tokenizer I glad to use tokenizer when we had to parse a whole bunch of weirdly formatted strings. It is a little bit tricky to get used to, especially the fact that tokenizer acquires references to its input in some cases instead of making a local copy. IMO, boost.Tokenizer would benefit from a policy design to fix this issue. I would prefer Tokenizer making a true copy of its input by default. boost.iterators Wow. Moving legacy iterating interfaces, or interfaces that should of been properly designed as iterators to STL compliant iterators was easy and painless. The gains in functionality to our code made by this library are invaluable. boost.array boost.optional Originally considered to implement an interface to value access of an embedded database but was discarded because of the _horrible_ compile times that appeared when introduced. Also considered for its visitation facility as a means to transport complex data to be rendered in UI controls. Again, dropped because of the compile times. boost.regex When you need it, it works magic. boost.thread Used to implement the monitor pattern in key areas. The 2 most desired features : static linking of boost.threads and ability to kill a thread. boost.preprocessor Used to implement repetitive unit-test code generation. The codebase benefited greatly from the clarity boost.preprocessor brought. -- Best regards, Sebastien mailto:smartel@real.com

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Cache
by Maksym Motornyy 08 Jun '05

08 Jun '05

Hi all, I found that last discussion about cache classes in Boost was in year 2002. What happend at the end? Do we have cache in Boost or not? Sincerely, Maksym.

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RE: [boost] Re: Re: Typeof: Review result
by Brian Braatz 08 Jun '05

08 Jun '05

> -----Original Message----- > From: boost-bounces(a)lists.boost.org [mailto:boost-bounces@lists.boost.org] > On Behalf Of Jonathan Turkanis > I'm one of those people who feels I must put a lot of work into a review. > For > the FSM review I broke this policy and wrote a review even though I had > only > studied the documentation. My review was negative; it was basically a list > of > what I considered to be shortcomings of the library. > > I ended up getting into an unpleasant exchange with the library author, > who > repeatedly challenged me to suggest concrete changes to the design to fix > the > perceived problems. I had examined the library more thoroughly, my guess > is that > I would have been able to suggest improvements. I don't blame the library > author > in this case; it's only natural to ask for an alternate design when you > are told > that your design is flawed; however, I simply didn't have sufficient time > to > devote to the library. [Brian Braatz Writes:] What are the expectations here? I find myself in this spot frequently. I see something up for review, and it ALWAYS happens at the worst time for me. I look at it, but I tend to not say much unless I can REALLY devote the time needed to give the library the proper amount of review time. There might be "no answer" to the expectations questions. But I would be curious how others feel about this. I.e. If I only have an hour or two to look at something- is it still useful for me to submit a review? Part of the problem I have is an enormous respect for what a boost library is. It is not something one slaps together just to get their name in lights (to me at least). A boost library makes you go "Wow". if it doesn't make you go "Wow" it doesn't belong in boost. But if I cannot devote the time needed to review something DEEPLY, I feel it is somewhat disrespectful for me to participate. Do you guys think I am wrong to feel this way? Or do you find the opinions of a quick review valuable? Brian

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Internationalization
by Maksym Motornyy 08 Jun '05

08 Jun '05

Hello all, Is there any i18n library available (pending) in Boost? Sincerely, Maksym.

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STLport builds
by Valentin Samko 08 Jun '05

08 Jun '05

I've been trying to build Boost.Thread and a number of other libraries for use in the software in the company where I work, and was only stopped by a number of STLport related problems. We already use header-only boost libraries for many years, and now would like to start using other boost libs. The main problems are: 1. We use unchecked STLport variant (i.e. without __STL_DEBUG). Unfortunately, Boost is not compatible with this mode, although a fix to add this mode is only a few lines of code in boost build. When I added this mode and recompiled boost, everything ran without any noticeable problems. I think it is worth adding this mode to boost build so that developers wouldn't have to patch boost build to add this mode. 2. It is very usefull that compiled boost libraries embed version number and different compile time options in their names. Unfortunately, STLport version is not embedded in their names (only 'p'). This creates a problem where two executables compiled against different STLport versions try to use the same Boost.WhateverLibrary dll. Are there any reasons not to embed STLport version number into boost library names? 3. A separate issue with Boost.Threads, where _sntprintf is called in boost_error in read_write_mutex.cpp, even when building with STLport, which does not have _snprintf. Also, there is bug in boost_error, which wrongly assumes that _sntprintf zero terminates the resulting string. I also wrote a patch to fix this problem. Is there any way to merge it into Boost.Thread? I understand that we could solve these problems either by not using STLport, or by changing the way we use it, but unfortunately, this is next to impossible for us, as we have a large software suite which is built and supported this way for years. Also, I think other developers would benefit if Boost provided workarounds/solutions for these common STLport problems. -- Valentin Samko http://val.samko.info

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RE: [boost] Re: Kinook is using boost
by Brian Braatz 08 Jun '05

08 Jun '05

HAHAHAh When I clicked on the link earlier I was thinking the same thing. >From what I could gather on their web page- this is a commercial app that is closed source. > -----Original Message----- > From: boost-bounces(a)lists.boost.org [mailto:boost-bounces@lists.boost.org] > On Behalf Of Robert Ramey > Sent: Tuesday, June 07, 2005 6:46 PM > To: boost(a)lists.boost.org > Subject: [boost] Re: Kinook is using boost > > Hmmm - any chance it could build the boost libraries and run the tests? > > Robert Ramey > > Kyle Alons wrote: > > Kinook Software (http://www.kinook.com) uses Boost in the following > > products: > > > > Product: Visual Build Professional > > Description: Visual Build Pro is a tool that enables developers, > > software process engineers, and build specialists to create an > > automated, repeatable process for building their software. Visual > > Build provides built-in support for Microsoft Visual Studio .NET and > > 2005, Visual Basic, Visual C++, Visual J++, SourceSafe, eMbedded > > Tools, Borland Delphi, JBuilder, C++Builder, and more. > > Parts of Boost used: any, mem_fn, regex, shared_ptr, smart_ptr, > > static_assert > > Web site: http://www.visualbuild.com/ > > > > Product: Ultra Recall > > Description: Ultra Recall is a personal information management (PIM) / > > knowledge management (KM) application for Microsoft Windows. It helps > > you capture, organize, and recall all of your electronic information > > across all the applications that you use. > > Parts of Boost used: format, shared_ptr, static_assert > > Web site: http://www.ultrarecall.com/ > > > > Thanks. > > > > _______________________________________________ > Unsubscribe & other changes: > http://lists.boost.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/boost

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Kinook is using boost
by Kyle Alons 08 Jun '05

08 Jun '05

Kinook Software (http://www.kinook.com) uses Boost in the following products: Product: Visual Build Professional Description: Visual Build Pro is a tool that enables developers, software process engineers, and build specialists to create an automated, repeatable process for building their software. Visual Build provides built-in support for Microsoft Visual Studio .NET and 2005, Visual Basic, Visual C++, Visual J++, SourceSafe, eMbedded Tools, Borland Delphi, JBuilder, C++Builder, and more. Parts of Boost used: any, mem_fn, regex, shared_ptr, smart_ptr, static_assert Web site: http://www.visualbuild.com/ Product: Ultra Recall Description: Ultra Recall is a personal information management (PIM) / knowledge management (KM) application for Microsoft Windows. It helps you capture, organize, and recall all of your electronic information across all the applications that you use. Parts of Boost used: format, shared_ptr, static_assert Web site: http://www.ultrarecall.com/ Thanks. -- Kyle Alons Kinook Software, Inc. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com

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RE: [boost] Re: [function types] Formal Review begins today.
by Brian Braatz 07 Jun '05

07 Jun '05

> -----Original Message----- > From: boost-bounces(a)lists.boost.org [mailto:boost-bounces@lists.boost.org] > On Behalf Of Jody Hagins > Sent: Tuesday, June 07, 2005 8:49 AM > To: boost(a)lists.boost.org > Subject: Re: [boost] Re: [function types] Formal Review begins today. > > > > Seems like we have a fundamentally different taste when it comes to > > documentation... [Jody Hagins Writes:] > > Probably. > [Brian Braatz Writes:] Allow me to suggest 2 ways of thinking about library documentation: 1- The better the documentation is, and the more it speaks to the average user, the more usage the library will have. If the docs don't make sense, people will SKIP using the lib. (which is a shame) 2- The lower the skills required of the reader the better. I realize one can only do so much in documentation. I am simply stating that the simpler and more understandable the docs are the better. This is because the "skilled" folks can skip the intro if it is obvious. I believe: "Brilliance is a mastery of the obvious" <*>>> and documentation should seek to brilliantly expose the obvious over complicated subjects.

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