Re: [Boost-users] boost MSDN

Subject: Re: [Boost-users] boost MSDN
From: Lars Viklund (zao_at_[hidden])
Date: 2011-06-11 07:12:00

On Sat, Jun 11, 2011 at 06:54:57AM -0400, Edward Diener wrote:
> On 6/10/2011 5:51 AM, Klaim - Joël Lamotte wrote:
>> On Fri, Jun 10, 2011 at 05:39, Peter <lq.yan_at_[hidden]
>>     I'm a newer to boost library. when i try to use the boost library to
>>     get the files of current directory, I found it is so difficult to
>>     get some help from boost HTML document.
>>     Is there any document could teach me to use boost library API? Most
>>     of time,  i use visual studio, MSDN teach me how to use API.
>>     So i think Boost maybe has similar documents to help me improving
>>     coding speed.
>>     --
>>
>>
>> Hi Peter and welcome,
>>
>> Boost is a set of libraries, not only one library. You can think Boost
>> is a "quality label" to make it more clear.
>>
>> That means that each library have it own purpose, might be totally
>> independant of other Boost libraries and have an interface specifically
>> thought to solve a specific kind of problem. So not all libraries can
>> share the same interface.
>>
>> That also mean that each library have to have it's documentation
>> separate from the others.
>>
>> As Boost is totally independant from companies like Microsoft, you can't
>> (AFAIK) automatically provide a way to get the Boost documentation in
>> MSDN browser.

I believe you lads are misunderstanding his original question. My
interpretation is the following:

* When he refers to "MSDN teach me", he's referring to the ample amounts
  of examples, snippets and proper articles present in the APIs documented
  on the MSDN website/documentation.

* Most Boost library documentation is a bit sparse and unstructured when
  it comes to the prose, and samples tend to just be code dumps, while on
  MSDN they're typically interleaved with prose, describing things in more
  detail.

You make some points about that each Boost library having its own
documentation style, which makes it harder to find the relevant
sections of the documentation you're interested in.

I know I personally avoid the iostreams and serialization docs solely
due to the very hard to use expandos in the tree structure, and the
impossibility to link to particular pages while retaining said
navigation tree.

While it would be Good if all Boost docs was under the same
documentation system (which some are), porting old docs to whatever
system is in use now would probably be rather costly for little gain.

The IBD (Improving Boost Docs) got some progress in the past, but I'm
unsure what the end results of their effort were.

Peter: What in particular makes the Boost documentation hard to use?
Lack of samples? Different looks for different libraries?

-- 
Lars Viklund | zao_at_[hidden]