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Re: [boost] Replacing the ML with a forum
by Robert Ramey 28 Apr '23

28 Apr '23

On 4/27/23 8:11 AM, Vinnie Falco via Boost wrote: > On Thu, Apr 27, 2023 at 7:56 AM Robert Ramey via Boost > <boost(a)lists.boost.org> wrote: >> I fail to see what is to be gained by replacing the current system. > > The current system is not being "replaced" it is being enhanced, with > the OPTION (but not the requirement) to interact with the mailing > lists using a modern, forum-based interface. Just as there are folks > who have expressed that they would not participate in Boost > discussions outside of the mailing list interface, there are as many > (or more) people who have expressed that they will not interact with > Boost through the mailing list at all. You don't hear from them > because well, they don't post to the list (the dog that didn't bark). > > You ask, what is to be gained? > Well, the largest existential threat to > Boost is that we do not refresh the foundations of our social > technology and our membership. I don't believe this. > Library membership in Boost no longer > carries the cachet that it used to. Perhaps - > Authors of new libraries > increasingly prefer to go directly to the C++ standard instead of > being thoroughly vetted in a Boost review. True - Because its much easier to get something into the standard than it is to get it into boost. For one thing Boost requires a working implementation, test suite, and user level documentation. For the standard, all one needs is to convince a small group of one's buddies that the world needs the authors proposal. This is especially effective when the proposal is too opaque for any normal person to understand - thus guarenteeing that there were be no real objections. That is until its features get added into the standard and real people have difficulties implementing and/or using them. If we want to continue to > maintain Boost's extraordinary relevance, we must do the following: > 1. Make the mailing list more appealing to younger generations > (millenials and the TikTok youths) I don't think this is a real problem. I'm trying not to sound like a curmudgeonly old person, but really - are millenias and TikTok youths our target audience? > 2. Increase participation in the Boost Formal Review process To do this we need to attract better libraries and work harder to promote the review. Also the 1-2 week window for reviews is a big problem. I might want to do a review but I can't right now. One of the features of my "Blincubator" project was to permit one to post reviews long in advance of the official review period. In fact. We might delay the formal review period until there are some magic number of reviews already in the queue. > 3. Spark the imagination of the new generations of library authors > - to write new libraries > - to submit their libraries to Boost for review > - to become active maintainers upon acceptanc > > 4. Inspire people to contribute to Boost > - by using the libraries, and providing feedback > - by contributing to individual projects > - by helping with documentation > - by helping other users with questions or problems I think the best way to do this is for boost to create better software. This would mean less bugs/design flaws, better documentation, less quirky tools. Why can't we apply the standards we use for user libraries to boost infrastructure? This would mean: boost tools like the following: a) documentation chain b) build system - Bjam c) build system - CMake integration c) CI d) GitHub integration e) website development and testing f) probably some others I forgot would be subject to similar requirements as boost user libraries. That is, Test suite, documentation, Formal review. None of the boost tools have been subjected to these requirements - and anyone who tries to use them notices. This is probably the single greatest obstacle to continued progress of boost. > The mailing lists must never go away, for as long as there are even a > few people who prefer them. But this cannot be the sole method to > participate in the Boost social space. To stay current we must provide > additional choices. The need for a forum interface is obvious. Don't the #boost and #boost-user forums on Slack currently fulfill this requirement? Robert Ramey

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Re: [boost] Boost.Compat
by Peter Dimov 28 Apr '23

28 Apr '23

Glen Fernandes wrote: > On Friday, April 28, 2023, Dominique Devienne wrote: > > > Of course, Boost.Compat (or Boost.Polyfill) would need to turn on/off > > its std:: alternatives depending on the standard level in use. > > > > > If everyone agrees, this can be one of the tenets of Boost.Compat from the > very beginning. > > The "depending on the standard level in use" might be further clarified to > mean "provides a fully functional std:: version". An implementation in terms of `using std::something` will be allowed, but not required.

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Re: [boost] Boost.Compat
by Glen Fernandes 28 Apr '23

28 Apr '23

On Friday, April 28, 2023, Dominique Devienne wrote: > Of course, Boost.Compat (or Boost.Polyfill) would need to turn > on/off > its std:: alternatives depending on the standard level in use. > > If everyone agrees, this can be one of the tenets of Boost.Compat from the very beginning. The "depending on the standard level in use" might be further clarified to mean "provides a fully functional std:: version". Glen

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Re: [boost] Boost.Compat
by Dominique Devienne 28 Apr '23

28 Apr '23

On Thu, Apr 27, 2023 at 5:16 PM Peter Dimov via Boost <boost(a)lists.boost.org> wrote: > Newer C++ standards (20) have been adding useful things to the > standard library (<bit>, <latch>, etc) and most of us would like to > use them, both in Boost and outside of it, while still supporting > C++11, or 14, or 17. > > Many of these components are straightforward to implement > using the C++11 standard library, consist of not much than one > relatively small header, don't need many Boost dependencies > beyond the required ones (Assert, ThrowException, Config), and > since their interface is already fixed by the standard, don't need > a design review. > > It would be nice if we had a dedicated place in Boost where to > put these, to avoid the need for everyone reimplementing a > private copy. > > At the moment, some of these have gone into Core, for lack of > anywhere else, and we now have a <latch> contribution (which I > encouraged): > > https://github.com/boostorg/core/pull/144 > > However, Core is not quite the right place for these components. > > So my suggestion is to create a separate library/repo, Boost.Compat > (boostorg/compat, namespace boost::compat) for them. > > Thoughts? (Be sure to read the discussion in the PR as well.) > +1. I'm on C++17, and have adopted std::span and others from C++20/23, from various places on GitHub. I'd welcome Boost-provided "polyfills" [1] instead. Of course, Boost.Compat (or Boost.Polyfill) would need to turn on/off its std:: alternatives depending on the standard level in use. --DD PS: Since we update our Boost dependency rarely, I sometimes drop newer Boost libs (e.g. Boost.Describe) in our code-base, and hope for backward-compatibility with our old Boost install. So if Boost.Compat could be similarly backward-compatible, that would increase the likelyhood we could use it sooner rather than later. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyfill_(programming)

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Re: [boost] BOOST_NO_STD_LOCALE & BOOST_NO_STD_WSTREAMBUF
by John Maddock 28 Apr '23

28 Apr '23

On 27/04/2023 23:19, Robert Ramey via Boost wrote: > in boost/config/detail/suffix.hpp > > I find this bit of code: > > // > // We can't have a working std::wstreambuf if there is no std::locale: > // > # if defined(BOOST_NO_STD_LOCALE) && !defined(BOOST_NO_STD_WSTREAMBUF) > # define BOOST_NO_STD_WSTREAMBUF > # endif > > and believe it or not. this is now causing me some issues. Is the > statement above true? Do we know that wide char streams cannot exist > without std::locale being present? Can anyone shed light on this? As already mentioned, the original logic (and this dates back to C++98 or maybe even earlier!) was that there was a direct dependency between the "new" iostream operators and std::locale. I'm sure that for 99% of platforms this is redundant now anyway given that everyone supports wchar_t. What's the specific issue this is causing? John.

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Re: [boost] BOOST_NO_STD_LOCALE & BOOST_NO_STD_WSTREAMBUF
by Gavin Lambert 28 Apr '23

28 Apr '23

On 28/04/2023 13:07, Glen Fernandes wrote: >> in boost/config/detail/suffix.hpp >> I find this bit of code: >> // >> // We can't have a working std::wstreambuf if there is no std::locale: >> // >> # if defined(BOOST_NO_STD_LOCALE) && !defined(BOOST_NO_STD_WSTREAMBUF) >> # define BOOST_NO_STD_WSTREAMBUF >> # endif >> >> and believe it or not. this is now causing me some issues. Is the >> statement above true? Do we know that wide char streams cannot exist >> without std::locale being present? Can anyone shed light on this? > > Not just std::wstreambuf but also std::streambuf. ie. std::basic_streambuf > depends on std::locale. But does it really? I could imagine that in some embedded platform std::locale could be omitted (since it's huge, rarely used, insufficient for purpose, and everyone hates it anyway), and in that implementation it could be presumed that no such dependency exists either, so long as you don't try to actually call the omitted methods.

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Re: [boost] BOOST_NO_STD_LOCALE & BOOST_NO_STD_WSTREAMBUF
by Glen Fernandes 28 Apr '23

28 Apr '23

On Thu, Apr 27, 2023 at 6:13 PM Robert Ramey via Boost < boost(a)lists.boost.org> wrote: > in boost/config/detail/suffix.hpp > I find this bit of code: > // > // We can't have a working std::wstreambuf if there is no std::locale: > // > # if defined(BOOST_NO_STD_LOCALE) && !defined(BOOST_NO_STD_WSTREAMBUF) > # define BOOST_NO_STD_WSTREAMBUF > # endif > > and believe it or not. this is now causing me some issues. Is the > statement above true? Do we know that wide char streams cannot exist > without std::locale being present? Can anyone shed light on this? > Not just std::wstreambuf but also std::streambuf. ie. std::basic_streambuf depends on std::locale. Glen

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BOOST_NO_STD_LOCALE & BOOST_NO_STD_WSTREAMBUF
by Robert Ramey 27 Apr '23

27 Apr '23

in boost/config/detail/suffix.hpp I find this bit of code: // // We can't have a working std::wstreambuf if there is no std::locale: // # if defined(BOOST_NO_STD_LOCALE) && !defined(BOOST_NO_STD_WSTREAMBUF) # define BOOST_NO_STD_WSTREAMBUF # endif and believe it or not. this is now causing me some issues. Is the statement above true? Do we know that wide char streams cannot exist without std::locale being present? Can anyone shed light on this? Robert Ramey

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Re: [boost] Boost.Compat
by Christian Mazakas 27 Apr '23

27 Apr '23

I'm the author of the <latch> PR for Core so I'm also naturally in favor of this addition. What's the protocol for accepting such a library into Boost? Does it still go through formal review? Most of what would go in there exists in already-accepted Boost libraries. For example, the aforementioned Boost.Algorithm and Boost.Core contains several such things as <span>, <bit> and in its detail folder, <string_view>. The good news though is that because we're simply polyfilling standardized practice, there's no need to bikeshed interfaces. Oh, I almost forgot about Boost.Optional. How do we reify all of these existing classes and functions? - Christian

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Re: [boost] Boost.Compat
by Zach Laine 27 Apr '23

27 Apr '23

On Thu, Apr 27, 2023 at 11:21 AM Marshall Clow via Boost <boost(a)lists.boost.org> wrote: > > On Apr 27, 2023, at 8:31 AM, Glen Fernandes via Boost <boost(a)lists.boost.org> wrote: > > > > On Thu, Apr 27, 2023 at 11:24 AM Peter Dimov via Boost < > > boost(a)lists.boost.org> wrote: > > > >> It would be nice if we had a dedicated place in Boost where to > >> put these, to avoid the need for everyone reimplementing a > >> private copy. > >> > >> At the moment, some of these have gone into Core, for lack of > >> anywhere else, and we now have a <latch> contribution (which I > >> encouraged): > >> > >> https://github.com/boostorg/core/pull/144 > >> > >> However, Core is not quite the right place for these components. > >> > >> So my suggestion is to create a separate library/repo, Boost.Compat > >> (boostorg/compat, namespace boost::compat) for them. > >> > >> Thoughts? (Be sure to read the discussion in the PR as well.) > >> > > > > > > For the rest of the list: I'm in favor of this (as my response in the > > Core thread indicates). > > There’s a lot of this kind of stuff in Boost.Algorithm > > Boost/algorithm/cxx11, for example. Ha. Read first, then post, Zach. Zach

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