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[boost][qvm] Formal review for QVM
by Adam Wulkiewicz 05 Dec '15

05 Dec '15

Dear Boost community, The formal review of Emil Dotchevski's QVM library begins on 7th Dec and ends on 16th Dec. Boost QVM defines a set of generic functions and operator overloads for working with quaternions, vectors and matrices of static size with the emphasis on 2, 3 and 4-dimensional operations needed in graphics, video games and simulation applications. While it provides its own quaternion, matrix and vector types, it is designed to work primarily with user-defined types through user specializations of the q_traits, v_traits and m_traits templates. QVM's source code is available on Github: https://github.com/zajo/boost-qvm Full documentation is also viewable on Github: http://zajo.github.io/boost-qvm/ We encourage your participation in this review. At a minimum, kindly state: - Whether you believe the library should be accepted into Boost * Conditions for acceptance - Your name - Your knowledge of the problem domain. You are strongly encouraged to also provide additional information: - What is your evaluation of the library's: * Design * Implementation * Documentation * Tests * Usefulness - Did you attempt to use the library? If so: * Which compiler(s) * What was the experience? Any problems? - How much effort did you put into your evaluation of the review? More information about the review process can be found here: http://www.boost.org/community/reviews.html We await your feedback! Best regards, Adam Wulkiewicz

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Boost.Fiber mini-review report
by Nat Goodspeed 10 Oct '15

10 Oct '15

The mini-review of Boost.Fiber by Oliver Kowalke ran from Friday September 4th through Sunday September 13th. There was lively discussion, but only two actual reviews: Agustín K-ballo Bergé: not yet (list of issues below) Niall Douglas: yes, plus suggestions (below)[0] In addition I received two "review withheld" notes: Vicente J. Botet Escriba wanted me to address the previous review point by point. That seems like a reasonable request, and I apologize, but I too have time pressures. Giovanni Piero Deretta made suggestions (synopsized below) with the statement that he will make a recommendation when he sees the library author's progress along those lines. While in theory these results might seem like a hung jury, the very paucity of formal reviews supports a cautious approach. The verdict is: not yet, with specific points as noted below. No reviewer explicitly designated specific points as being essential. (Niall Douglas explicitly designated his suggestions as post-adoption enhancements.) I have made an attempt to rank the recommendations received in descending order of importance to the community. My criteria are: Robustness: does lack of this request pose significant risk to a consuming program? API stability: could this request be considered an implementation detail, or would the change break early adopters? Demand: how many people requested the same thing? If you feel that I have misrepresented the importance of one of your points (or omitted something entirely), please respond. Ultimately, of course, the importance of any given point to the community at large will be reflected in the next mini-review. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Requests: Cross-thread fiber migration: Evidently the community strongly desires the ability to transfer a suspended fiber from one thread to another.[1] Of course there must be controls. Migration might be explicit; but if implicit, there must be a way to designate which fibers may and may not be migrated. An RAII class that temporarily disables migration would also be desirable -- for instance, to guarantee TLS consistency for some specific period. Cross-thread migration support implies a requirement to document the thread safety requirements of the customization API. Standard required timing specifications: meet (30.2.4 Timing specifications [thread.req.timing]). Adapt one or more existing test suites for thread facilities to validate the correctness of the Fiber library's synchronization constructs: e.g. from libc++, libstdc++, Boost.Thread, HPX. std::chrono support: ensure that wait_until() can accept any supported time_point specialization. (The library author asserts that this has already been fixed on the 'develop' branch.) C++11 compatibility: Agustín K-ballo Bergé volunteered to help with this point post-adoption. Paul Fultz offered fit::capture to emulate C++14 move capture. Document that this_fiber::yield() (et al.) are valid from main(), or in general from a thread function, as well as from explicitly-launched fibers. Make shared_state lock requirements explicit: for example, make mark_ready_and_notify_() accept a std::unique_lock<>& (or &&) to force its caller to provide one. Avoid holding mutex during condition_variable::notify_*() calls. (The library author asserts that this has already been fixed on the 'develop' branch.) packaged_task must not decay-copy its task arguments. Align fibers::async() signature, result description and invoke_helper implementation with std::async(). Avoid returning std::move(...). Wait list implementation: try an intrusive linked list of fiber_context objects. Avoid sleeping thread when no fibers are ready -- block on external event. Better handling of waiting tasks (decentralized wait queues?). Optimization to resume awakened fiber on the thread that awakens it. Template redundancy: eliminate duplication between specializations for T, T& and void. The future, shared_future, shared_state, promise and task_object templates were specifically cited. Leverage predicate-based condition::wait() overload internally. Nested schedulers: make schedulers be schedulable entities themselves. Improve robustness of `promise' handling in Asynchronous Callbacks documentation. Avoid overconfident remarks about it. Fix Note overstating the requirements on condition_variable::wait(). The discussion also surfaced the desirability of Grand Unified Future Theory, but it was generally agreed that this is out of scope. Put differently, it would be unreasonable to put the onus on Fiber to solve that very broad cross-library problem. Many thanks to all participants, and thanks especially to Oliver Kowalke for all his work on this library! Nat Goodspeed Boost.Fiber Review Manager ________________________________ [0] Niall Douglas snuck his review recommendation into the following mail message: http://lists.boost.org/Archives/boost/2015/09/225228.php (second to final paragraph). His suggestions were in private mail. [1] Giovanni Deretta suggests that it might be possible to allocate -- without actually running -- an actual kernel thread per fiber, simply to give each fiber its own TLS area.

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[Boost-users] Compile and run Boost examples online
by Antony Polukhin 25 Sep '15

25 Sep '15

Hi all, I've just launched the beta version of online examples for the "Boost Application Development Cookbook": http://apolukhin.github.io/Boost-Cookbook-4880OS/ There you can do online compilation of Boost related code, run examples, freely experiment with code from the book, read intros for the code and play around with the Boost libraries. I hope the site would be useful! P.S.: If you wish to report an error or wish to have some functionality added to the site, use the "Issues" link at https://github.com/apolukhin/Boost-Cookbook-4880OS or even make a pull request. P.P.S.: Intros for Chapters 7-12 are missing at this moment. I'll add them in a few months, sorry for the delay. -- Best regards, Antony Polukhin

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Boost.Fiber mini-review September 4-13
by Nat Goodspeed 04 Sep '15

04 Sep '15

Hi all, The mini-review of Boost.Fiber by Oliver Kowalke begins today, Friday September 4th, and closes Sunday September 13th. It was reviewed in January 2014; the verdict at that time was "not in its present form." Since then Oliver has substantially improved documentation, performance, library customization and the underlying implementation, and is bringing the library back for mini-review. The substance of the library API remains the same, which is why a mini-review is appropriate. The Fiber library now requires a C++14-conforming compiler. I will monitor reviews and discussion on both the boost-users@ list and the boost@ developers' list. Please include at least "fiber" and "review" in your mail subject, e.g. by replying to this message. (Please reply to only ONE list, however.) Thank you for your interest and your feedback! ----------------------------------------------------- About the library: Boost.Fiber provides a framework for micro-/userland-threads (fibers) scheduled cooperatively. The API contains classes and functions to manage and synchronize fibers similar to Boost.Thread. Each fiber has its own stack. A fiber can save the current execution state, including all registers and CPU flags, the instruction pointer, and the stack pointer and later restore this state. The idea is to have multiple execution paths running on a single thread using a sort of cooperative scheduling (versus threads, which are preemptively scheduled). The running fiber decides explicitly when it should yield to allow another fiber to run (context switching). Boost.Fiber internally uses execution_context from Boost.Context; the classes in this library manage, schedule and, when needed, synchronize those contexts. A context switch between threads usually costs thousands of CPU cycles on x86, compared to a fiber switch with a few hundred cycles. A fiber can only run on a single thread at any point in time. docs: http://olk.github.io/libs/fiber/doc/html/index.html git: https://github.com/olk/boost-fiber --------------------------------------------------- Please always state in your review whether you think the library should be accepted as a Boost library! Additionally please consider giving feedback on the following general topics: - What is your evaluation of the design? - What is your evaluation of the implementation? - What is your evaluation of the documentation? - What is your evaluation of the potential usefulness of the library? - Did you try to use the library? With what compiler? Did you have any problems? - How much effort did you put into your evaluation? A glance? A quick reading? In-depth study? - Are you knowledgeable about the problem domain? Nat Goodspeed Boost.Fiber Review Manager ________________________________

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[boost] [http] Boost.Http review report
by Bjorn Reese 27 Aug '15

27 Aug '15

The outcome of the formal review of Boost.Http is that the library is NOT accepted for inclusion into Boost this time. Below I will first summarize the main themes running through the review, and afterwards I will make some recommendations about how to proceed from here. The following reviews were posted: - Antony Polukhin: No - Darren Cook: No - David Sankel: No - Lee Clagett: No - Niall Douglas: Yes, conditionally - Roland Bock: No - Tom Kent: No The discussions were constructive and offered much valuable feedback. There was a general consensus that Boost ought have a HTTP library, but that Boost.Http was too incomplete in its present state. Many reviewers mentioned the disconnect between their expectations and what the library offered. There were several suggestions for alternative names for the library to better reflect the feature-set it offers. Boost.Http currently only provides a server-side API, but the reviewers felt that a client-side API would be usable to more users. There was also a recurring request for Boost.Http to be a header-only library. The HTTP parser currently used is not header-only and that is the main obstacle towards a header-only Boost.Http library. Some of the discussion revolved around what level of abstraction would be appropriate for Boost.Http. The views ranged from wanting higher- level APIs all the way down to simply wanting a HTTP parser/generator and then leave all the socket and buffer management up to the user. Regarding the HTTP parser/generator, there is no reason why it cannot be a separate Boost library. However, Vinicius correctly pointed out that this is insufficient for a HTTP server framework that handles multipleback-ends (e.g. HTTP/2, FastCGI, or WebSocket). By implication it cannot handle HTTP upgrade requests either. Some reviewers also felt that HTTP/2 should be part of Boost.Http, partly because that would demonstrate the extensibility of the current design, and partly because the library would be in a stronger position to attract users if it offers more than its competitors. There was concern about whether or not the Boost.Http API can be extended to HTTP/2. The main challenge with HTTP/2 is fitting multiplexing into the API. Vinicius suggested that there should be a http::socket per multiplexed channel, so it will be transparent to the user if several of his http::sockets to the same remote endpoint are transported via the same TCP socket. This will keep the API clean when extended to HTTP/2. Boost.Http currently creates an associative array for all header fields. One reviewer explored the idea of using an incremental (push or pull) HTTP parser as part of the API to let users decide which header fields to copy and which to discard. There was a general consensus that more examples are needed, and that the tutorial should have smaller examples. The Boost.Http code base currently builds with CMake. This must be converted into Boost.Build before being integrated into the Boost code base. Several other third-party tools were suggested, but as these are not requirements for inclusion into Boost I will leave the decision to the author. As for the future, I hope that Vinicius is not too discourage by the current rejection, and that he will consider re-submitting the library at a later stage. Judging from the reviews, the following additions will make a future submission more likely to succeed: 1. Involve the community more during the development. This will both solicit earlier feedback on the design, and help to align community expectation. 2. Provide a client-side API. 3. Design higher-level APIs on top of the low-level APIs. 4. Better documentation and more examples. I also hope that people in the community will consider contributing to the library. For example, a good opportunity is to help creating the higher-level APIs. Another opportunity is to help with the (header- only, possibly incremental) HTTP parser/generator, which could be a separate library. _______________________________________________ Unsubscribe & other changes: http://lists.boost.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/boost

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[boost] [afio] Formal review of Boost.AFIO
by Ahmed Charles 23 Aug '15

23 Aug '15

The formal review of the Boost.AFIO library starts, August 21st and ends on Monday August 31st. Boost.AFIO provides a portable API implementing synchronous and asynchronous race-free filesystem and scatter-gather file i/o. It requires a minimum of C++ 11. It has minimum dependencies on a Filesystem TS and a Networking TS implementation (e.g. Boost.Filesystem and Boost.ASIO). Backends are provided for the Windows NT kernel and POSIX. The utility of a portable library providing strong concurrent race guarantees about filesystem and file i/o can be seen in its tutorial where a transactional ACID key-value store is built from first principles. Boost.AFIO was brought to Boost as part of GSoC 2013 and Niall Douglas has continued to develop and improve the library since then, generating two internal implementation libraries Boost.APIBind and Boost.Monad which are expected to be separately brought for Boost review in 2016. The documentation can be found here: https://boostgsoc13.github.io/boost.afio/doc/html/afio.html The source code can be found here: https://github.com/BoostGSoC13/boost.afio/tree/boost-peer-review Online web compiler playpen can be found here: http://melpon.org/wandbox/permlink/DR8wCpu5Rl20GMdM? Please answer the following questions: 1. Should Boost.AFIO be accepted into Boost? Please state all conditions for acceptance explicity. 2. What is your evaluation of the design? 3. What is your evaluation of the implementation? 4. What is your evaluation of the documentation? 5. What is your evaluation of the potential usefulness of the library? 6. Did you try to use the library? With what compiler? Did you have any problems? 7. How much effort did you put into your evaluation? A glance? A quick reading? In-depth study? 8. Are you knowledgeable about the problem domain? _______________________________________________ Unsubscribe & other changes: http://lists.boost.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/boost

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[boost] Boost 1.59.0 has been released
by Marshall Clow 13 Aug '15

13 Aug '15

Release 1.59.0 of the Boost C++ Libraries is now available. These open-source libraries work well with the C++ Standard Library, and are usable across a broad spectrum of applications. The Boost license encourages both commercial and non-commercial use. This release contains two new libraries and numerous enhancements and bug fixes for existing libraries. New Libraries * Convert: An extendible and configurable type-conversion framework, from Vladimir Batov. * Coroutine2: from Oliver Kowalke For details, including download links, see http://www.boost.org/users/news/version_1.59.0 You can also download directly from SourceForge: http://sourceforge.net/projects/boost/files/boost/1.59.0/ To install this release on your system, see http://www.boost.org/doc/libs/release/more/getting_started/index.html Thanks, --The Boost release team Vladimir Prus Rene Rivera Marshall Clow Eric Niebler Daniel James Beman Dawes _______________________________________________ Unsubscribe & other changes: http://lists.boost.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/boost

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[boost] [http] Formal review of Boost.Http
by Bjorn Reese 07 Aug '15

07 Aug '15

Dear Boost and ASIO communities. The formal review of Vinícius dos Santos Oliveira's Boost.Http library starts today, August 7th and ends on Sunday August 16th. Boost.Http is designed for various forms of modern HTTP interaction, from normal HTTP request, over HTTP chunking and pipelining, to upgrading to other web protocols like WebSocket. This library builds on top of Boost.ASIO, and follows the threading model of ASIO. The two basic building-blocks are http::socket, which is socket that talks HTTP, and http::message with contains HTTP meta-data and body information. You can use these building-blocks to build a HTTP server that fits your exact needs; for instance, an embedded HTTP server for a ReST API. Boost.Http comes with a light-weight HTTP server and a static file server. Currently, Boost.Http is limited to server-side interaction, but the design principles used extends to client-side as well. Boost.Http was originally developed as part of GSoC 2014 and Vinícius has continued to develop and improve the library since then. The documentation can be found here: http://boostgsoc14.github.io/boost.http/ The source code can be found here: https://github.com/BoostGSoC14/boost.http The source code is build using CMake, but Boost.Build is in the pipeline (already done for documentation.) Please answer the following questions: 1. Should Boost.Http be accepted into Boost? Please state all conditions for acceptance explicity. 2. What is your evaluation of the design? 3. What is your evaluation of the implementation? 4. What is your evaluation of the documentation? 5. What is your evaluation of the potential usefulness of the library? 6. Did you try to use the library? With what compiler? Did you have any problems? 7. How much effort did you put into your evaluation? A glance? A quick reading? In-depth study? 8. Are you knowledgeable about the problem domain? _______________________________________________ Unsubscribe & other changes: http://lists.boost.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/boost

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[Boost-users] Boost.DLL formal review result
by Vladimir Prus 24 Jul '15

24 Jul '15

The Boost.DLL library is accepted. Congratulations to Antony, and thanks for everybody who reviewed the library! The votes were as follows: - Ralf Globisch - Yes - Klaim - Joël Lamotte - Yes - Niall Douglas - Yes, conditionally - John P Fletcher - Yes - Bjorn Reese - Yes - Edward Diener - Yes - Rodrigo Madera - Yes - Richard - Yes I'd like to also thank Thomas Trummer, Rob Stewart and Ion Gaztañaga for their contribution to review. The key suggestions from the review are listed below. None is critical enough to become a formal prerequisite, or require a mini-review. The library can be added when Antony feels its ready. Naming ----------- There was a concern that "DLL" might sound windows specific, and search for best terminology. This does not seem all that important, as soon as documentation introduces the terminology it uses, and is consistent. OSX support ------------------- The library was found not to work on OSX; I believe this issue was already fixed off-list with help from Rodrigo. Documentation ---------------------- Several people requested improvements. Bjorn and John, in particular, pointed out specific issues. This seems to be the post important change prior to adding the library. Dependencies on Boost and system headers ---------------------------------------------------------------- It was suggested that the library does not depend on other Boost C++ Libraries. While it might be helpful to some users, I find it logically impossible for a Boost formal review to request that dependencies on Boost libraries be removed. It was also mentioned that Boost.DLL is header-only library and includes system headers that can bring a lot of symbols and maybe macros. I don't think an actual problem was reported, though, and there is no way to avoid the problem while staying header-only. It's up to the author to consider these suggestions and do something, or don't do anything. Continuous integration -------------------------------- There was a recommendation from Niall to improve CI of the library, including static analysis, valgrind, Windows CI, showing CI status in documentation and so forth. These are good suggestions. At the same time, they are not specific to Boost.DLL, and it's not the goal of a formal review to create new generic development process requirements. Many existing libraries of indisputably high quality do not have these requested mechanisms. Therefore, the author can act on these suggestions as he sees fit. Thanks, -- Vladimir Prus http://vladimirprus.com _______________________________________________ Boost-users mailing list Boost-users(a)lists.boost.org http://lists.boost.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/boost-users

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Boost release 1.59.0 beta 1 is now available from SourceForge
by Marshall Clow 22 Jul '15

22 Jul '15

Boost release 1.59.0 beta 1 is now available from SourceForge See http://sourceforge.net/projects/boost/files/boost/1.59.0.beta.1/ For details of what's in the release, see http://www.boost.org/users/history/version_1_59_0.html. Note that the links to files on this web page are for the final release - use the SourceForge link above to get the beta files. Please download the beta, give it a try, and report any problems you encounter. Thanks, -- The Boost Release Team

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