Re: [Boost-users] [review] Formal Fast-Track review of the Boost.Functional/Factory library begins today

From: Cromwell Enage (sponage_at_[hidden])
Date: 2007-12-24 03:46:28

--- John Torjo wrote:
> Hi all,

Hello!

I hope it's not too late to submit a review.

> What to include in Review Comments
> ==================================
> * What is your evaluation of the design?

Simple enough to understand.  And I'm fine with the
name, too, as long as it's qualified with the
Functional prefix.

> * What is your evaluation of the implementation?

N/A

> * What is your evaluation of the documentation?

A little too sparse for comfort.  It's not so much
that there are too few examples, but that they need to
be more fleshed out, e.g. code before boost::factory
v.s. code using boost::factory.  With this type of
format, not only do programmers see the syntactical
benefits of using boost::factory, but they could also
tell at a glance whether or not they can use it for
the task at hand.

> * What is your evaluation of the potential
> usefulness of the library?

It's easy to underestimate, especially without more
fleshed-out examples.  But for myself, I find it very
useful.  For example, when I get the chance to update
my Automaton library (and upon acceptance of this
library), I'll immediately replace my
default_constructible_gen utility with value_factory. 
This leads to another generalized use case:
value_factory can produce lazy default values/objects
for Boost.Parameter-enabled arguments.

> * Did you try to use the library?  With what
> compiler?  Did you have any problems?

No, N/A, and not yet.

> * How much effort did you put into your evaluation?
>    A glance? A quick reading? In-depth study?

The Christmas season hasn't given me much time to do
more than a quick reading.

> * Are you knowledgeable about the problem domain?

Yes.

> And finally, every review should answer this
> question:
> 
> * Do you think the library should be accepted as a
> Boost library?

I vote conditional acceptance pending improvements
made to the documentation examples.  The library is
named after a design pattern that not everyone knows
about or may have a different understanding of--some
programmers see factories as object managers that
reuse objects rather than delete them for performance
reasons--so I think some in-depth examples are
extremely important for clarification purposes.  Peter
Dimov gave a good use case, and FWIW I'll try to help
out as well.

                              Cromwell D. Enage

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