Re: [Boost-users] [Review results][PQS]

From: Andy Little (andy_at_[hidden])
Date: 2006-06-21 14:36:45

"fred bertsch"wrote
> The Physical Quantities System review has ended, and, unfortunately,
> we are going to have to turn it down at this time. However, it is
> clear from the reviews that there is an enormous amount of interest in
> the library. I'm really hoping that that Andy Little will continue his
> work on it and resubmit it for review.
>
> Andy has been following the large discussion of PQS, so I will not
> enumerate the more minor criticisms included there. Some of the major
> criticisms that influenced my difficult decision include the
> following:
>
> * Many of the reviews liked the documentation, but improvements there
> would help out for a large number of reviewers.
>
> * If the library were more flexible about the type system used,
> several reviewers would have been happier. However, I would suggest
> that as long as a plan is in place for improving the flexibility, this
> should not prevent an initial version of the library from being
> accepted.
>
> * Since the library includes a large number of compile-time type
> manipulations, it would be great if the library included standard
> metafunctions to query these types. In addition, following other
> template metaprogramming conventions established within Boost such as
> documenting the concepts used would be a great help.
>
> I'd like to thank Andy Little for the work done so far on PQS and also
> for responding rapidly to the prolific discussion on the developer's
> list.

Thanks Fred  Bertsch, for all your work in managing the PQS review, especially
for helping me keep my nerve in the first week, when it looked like PQS might be
the first review to pass without a single comment! I don't quite know what
happened but thankfully the review suddenly took off.

Thanks to everyone who took part both with reviews and criticisms and comments.

Thanks especially to David Walthall and Bill Myers who stepped forward into the
crocodile pond that is a boost review and helped break the duck.

Thanks to Pavel Vozenilek for breaking the duck and for his very comprehensive
review.

Thanks to Leland Brown for sharing his own experiences of creating a physical
quantities library. Leland , your work has made me see that there is a good use
for a quantity with a runtime modifiable dimension, which I hadnt thought about
much before.

Thanks to Geoffrey Irving, not that he contributed a review but just because his
own work is awe inspiring.

Thanks to Janek Kozicki for actually getting down and dirty and experimenting
with PQS in http://yade.berlios.de/, his epic physical modelling library.  I
hope to be able to study yade in more detail and even try to port it to a PQS
version and Windows. Thanks also for the performance tests, which show I need to
take this aspect more seriously.

Thanks to John Phillips for his review and attempting to persuade me to widen
the scope of PQS into the realm of space-time. I'm thinking about it!

Thanks especially to Paul Bristow for his review. Paul, in around 2003 you were
the only respondent to my original any interest post re PQS. I often wonder if
you regret replying as my reply was quite heated, but an impassioned thread
ensued as I well remember that went on for quite a while.

Thanks to Matthias Schabel. I don't know that we agreed on any point regarding
physical quantities libraries, but PQS still uses your compile time rational
FWIW. Good luck with whatever you're doing now.

Thanks to Phil Richards for trying to reconcile my and Matthias libraries!.
Congratulations on the baby.

Thanks to Deane Yang for your comments and suggestions over the years.

Thanks to Jan Langer for his input regarding return types of calculations and
other stuff.

Thanks to Cromwell Enage for providing mpl rational, but me and mpl just don't
see eye to eye, but I finally bought the TMP book anyway.

Thanks to Eric Ford for his own work on units.

Thanks to Zach Laine for his feedback.

Thanks to Brandon Forehand. Sorry I lost faith in PQS for a while.

Thanks to Ron Garcia for supervising the review process.

Thanks to Thorsten Ottosen and Jeff Garland for their encouragement.

Thanks to Jesper Schidt for his review and for providing us with more windmills.

Thanks to Arkadiy Vertleyb for Boost.Typeof.

Thanks to Oleg Abrosimov, Noel Belcourt, Peter Henderson, Jarrad Wateroo, David
Greene and Matthias Troyer for putting the time to write reviews.

( BTW If there is anyone I left out Say so Now...)

Thanks to everyone else who contributed their comments and thoughts. Especially
re vector spaces and such.

Thanks to Martin Slater for his suggestions re the Quaternions book. I bought
it, whether I will understand it is another matter. :-)

Thanks to Herve Bronnimann for his suggestions re PQS.

Finally many thanks to David Abrahams and all the other original boosters for
simply providing boost. Its an amazing place.

Regarding the future of PQS, I have applied to sourceforge and I hope that if
the project is accepted it will go under the new title Quan. I hope to continue
to work on the library there and hopefully resubmit it to boost at some stage.

regards
Andy Little