Re: [Boost-users] [Phoenix] review reminder

Subject: Re: [Boost-users] [Phoenix] review reminder
From: Robert Ramey (ramey_at_[hidden])
Date: 2008-09-29 13:24:54

I spent some time looking at this library.  I'm looking at the documentation
in release 1.36 for phoenix in the spirit library documentation.

Here are a few observations:

I don't really know enough about functional programming in order
to write a revew.  My perspective is of someone who is interested in
this subject and wants to use phoenix as a vehicule to learn more about it
and experiment with it to see to what extent it can help me with the
programming problems that I come upon in my daily work.

I don't like the current trend in assigning "cute" names to
libraries.  E.G. spirit, phoenix, proto, xpressive, oven, - I'm
sure there are others.  The universe libraries is sufficiently large
that given a problem, I'm included to scan a list of library names
and drill down into those whose names suggest they might help
on my current problem.  These names don't help me with that.
I don't expect anyone to change a current name, and It's not
a huge issue - but it is a minor annoyance.

When I perused the library documentation, I was left with
the idea that I had a general understanding of what it does
and that I could make use of it should I decide to.  This
struck a very positive note for me.

However, I would much like to see a few simple
examples of complete applications which show how the
library can actually shorten/and/or improve the final result.
The "First Practical Example" is too trivial and it seems
to be the only real example.

After writing the above, I looked up the references cited
in the documentation.  I found that I had the same complaint
about most of them.  The John Hughes paper (1989!) did
have some interesting examples.  Maybe implementing
the newton-raphson method on in terms of phoenix might
have helped me.

Robert Ramey