- Boost-announce - lists.preview.boost.org

[Announcement] Boost joins the Software Freedom Conservancy
by Beman Dawes 16 Aug '07

16 Aug '07

Effective August 10th, 2007, Boost became a member project of the Software Freedom Conservancy, http://conservancy.softwarefreedom.org. This means that Boost is now part of a legal entity under US law, and tax-exempt under section 501(c)(3) of the US tax regulations. Although this doesn't have much short-term effect, it lets us move forward with BoostCon 2008 planning with less administrative delay. Long-term, being part of a non-profit organization allows Boost to continue to grow and prosper, and to raise money if that becomes useful. After considering the option of starting our own foundation (a huge amount of work), the Boost moderators decided that joining the Software Freedom Conservancy was a better option. The SFC provides the same legal abilities of a foundation at NO cost to the Boost project. It also minimizes the amount of legal and administrative hassles for project members -- allowing us to stay focused on technical matters rather than tax law. In addition, we are free to leave the SFC and create our own foundation at a later time if we decide that the SFC is not serving us well. Boost is not alone -- some other well known open source projects have also joined the SFC (eg: Samba, Wine). For those interested in the details, see a copy of the legal agreement at svn.boost.org/svn/boost/trunk/more/BoostSponsorshipAgreement.pdf I signed for Boost, since I was the founder and am the owner of the boost.org domain name. Dave Abrahams gets the credit for working out the details of the SFC agreement, with the help of the other moderators. --Beman

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ScopeExit Review Reminder
by Jody Hagins 16 Aug '07

16 Aug '07

We have received only a few reviews so far. The review ends in less than a week, so time is running short. Thanks! >From the original announcement... The review period for Scope Exit Time Series, submitted by Alexander Nasonov, runs from Monday, August 13 until Wednesday, August 22. >From the documentation: Nowadays, every C++ developer is familiar with RAII technique. It binds resource acquisition and release to initialization and destruction of a variable that holds the resource. But there are times when writing a special class for such variable is not worth the effort. This is when ScopeExit macro comes into play. You put resource acquisition directly in your code and next to it you write a code that releases the resource. Note that ScopeExit uses PP macros and relies on Boost.Typeof. The latest version can is here: http://boost-consulting.com/vault/index.php?action=downloadfile&filename=sc… It's available also at http://tinyurl.com/2z6qg2 Online documentation is here: http://194.6.223.221/~nasonov/scope_exit-0.04/libs/scope_exit/doc/html/inde… >From the review guidelines here: http://boost.org/more/formal_review_process.htm ... Boost mailing list members are encouraged to submit Formal Review comments: * Publicly on the mailing list. * Privately to the Review Manager. Private comments to a library submitter may be helpful to her or him, but won't help the Review Manager reach a decision, so the other forms are preferred. What to include in Review Comments Your comments may be brief or lengthy, but basically the Review Manager needs your evaluation of the library. If you identify problems along the way, please note if they are minor, serious, or showstoppers. Here are some questions you might want to answer in your review: * 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? And finally, every review should answer this question: * Do you think the library should be accepted as a Boost library? Be sure to say this explicitly so that your other comments don't obscure your overall opinion. Thanks in advance to every for your participation in this review.

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ScopeExit Review Begins Today
by Jody Hagins 13 Aug '07

13 Aug '07

The review period for Scope Exit Time Series, submitted by Alexander Nasonov, runs from Monday, August 13 until Wednesday, August 22. >From the documentation: Nowadays, every C++ developer is familiar with RAII technique. It binds resource acquisition and release to initialization and destruction of a variable that holds the resource. But there are times when writing a special class for such variable is not worth the effort. This is when ScopeExit macro comes into play. You put resource acquisition directly in your code and next to it you write a code that releases the resource. Note that ScopeExit uses PP macros and relies on Boost.Typeof. The latest version can is here: http://boost-consulting.com/vault/index.php?action=downloadfile&filename=sc… It's available also at http://tinyurl.com/2z6qg2 Online documentation is here: http://194.6.223.221/~nasonov/scope_exit-0.04/libs/scope_exit/doc/html/inde… >From the review guidelines here: http://boost.org/more/formal_review_process.htm ... Boost mailing list members are encouraged to submit Formal Review comments: * Publicly on the mailing list. * Privately to the Review Manager. Private comments to a library submitter may be helpful to her or him, but won't help the Review Manager reach a decision, so the other forms are preferred. What to include in Review Comments Your comments may be brief or lengthy, but basically the Review Manager needs your evaluation of the library. If you identify problems along the way, please note if they are minor, serious, or showstoppers. Here are some questions you might want to answer in your review: * 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? And finally, every review should answer this question: * Do you think the library should be accepted as a Boost library? Be sure to say this explicitly so that your other comments don't obscure your overall opinion. Thanks in advance to every for your participation in this review.

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ScopeExit Review Announcement
by Jody Hagins 02 Aug '07

02 Aug '07

Alexander Nasonov's ScopeExit submission will be formally reviewed August 13 - August 22. The current submission has been uploaded to http://boost-consulting.com/vault/index.php?action=downloadfile&filename=sc… It's also available at http://tinyurl.com/2z6qg2 Online documentation is here http://194.6.223.221/~nasonov/scope_exit-0.04/libs/scope_exit/doc/html/inde…

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[boost] Time Series review - 7/30-8/8
by John Phillips 31 Jul '07

31 Jul '07

My apologies for the delay in this posting, but the review period for the Time Series library submitted by Eric Neibler runs from Monday, July 30 until Wednesday, August 8. From the documentation: The purpose of the Boost.Time_series library is to provide data structures, numerical operators and algorithms to operate on time series. A time series is a series of data points, sampled at regular intervals. The library provides numerous time series containers, each with different time/space trade-offs, and a hierarchy of concepts which allow the time series to be manipulated generically. The library also provides operators and algorithms which use the generic interfaces to perform calculations on time series and accumulate various statistics about them. Boost.Time_series does not yet contain all the algorithms one might want in order to perform full time series analysis. However, the key contribution of Boost.Time_series is the framework and the rich hierarchy of concepts with which such algorithms can be written to efficiently and generically process series of data with widely divergent in-memory representations and performance characteristics. Boost.Time_series provides several such series containers, as well as mechanisms for defining additional series types and algorithms that fit within the framework. Some examples of series types that are provided are: dense, sparse, piecewise constant, heaviside and others, as well as adaptors for providing shifted, scaled and clipped series views. Please notice that the Time Series library uses some features of boost that will be part off the 1.35 release, but are not I the 1.34.1 release. For testing, you will need to either test against CVS Head (Which will not be available for much of Tuesday.) or use backports provided in the time series download files to update your 1.34.x installation. The library is available from http://boost-consulting.com/vault/index.php?directory=Math%20-% 20Numerics or by following the link provided on the review schedule. Thanks to all for your time and effort on this review. John Phillips Review Manager _______________________________________________ Unsubscribe & other changes: http://lists.boost.org/mailman/ listinfo.cgi/boost

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Extended deadline - LCSD 2007 (CFP)
by Jeremy Siek 28 Jul '07

28 Jul '07

Extended deadline August 5, 2007 for research paper submissions. ACM SIGPLAN SYMPOSIUM ON LIBRARY-CENTRIC SOFTWARE DESIGN - LCSD'07 http://lcsd.cs.tamu.edu/2007 on October 21st, 2007 at Object-Oriented Programming, Systems, Languages and Applications (OOPSLA'07) conference in Montreal, Canada, October 21-25, 2007 CALL FOR PAPERS Libraries are central to all major scientific, engineering, and business areas, yet the design, implementation, and use of libraries are underdeveloped arts. This symposium is one of the first steps in the process of placing all aspects of libraries on a sound technical and scientific basis through research into fundamental issues and documentation of best practices. A software library is an organized collection of code with associated tools supporting programming in general or in specific domains, usually united by a specified set of principles and conventions. Most libraries are aimed for use by several people and in different environments. The areas of software library research include * Design and implementation of libraries * Program and system design based on libraries * Libraries supporting specific application domains, such as biology or banking * Evolution, refactoring, and maintenance of libraries * Empirical studies of library use * Performance of libraries, including benchmarking and library-based optimizations * Design of language facilities and tools in support of library definition and use * Validation, debugging, and testing of libraries * Extensibility, parameterization, and customization * Distribution of libraries * Specification of libraries and their semantics * Usability for library users and developers * Assessing quality of libraries * Documentation and teaching of libraries * Creating and supporting communities of library users * Using several libraries in combination We invite the submission of papers on software library research, including, but not limited to, the above list of topics. The papers should address issues important to libraries as a field, i.e., describe ideas or techniques that can be reused for libraries across problem domains and/or languages. Authors should use the latest ACM SIGS conference style file (option 1) at http://www.acm.org/sigs/pubs/proceed/template.html. Submissions should be limited to 12 pages in this style. Accepted papers will be published in the ACM proceedings for the symposium. IMPORTANT DATES Aug 5 Submission of papers (new deadline) Sep 5 Notification of acceptance Sep 19 Submission of final versions of the papers Oct 21 Symposium SUBMISSION PROCEDURE Submit papers using the START system at the following URL: https://www.softconf.com/starts/lcsd07/submit.html ORGANIZERS * Jaakko Jarvi, Texas A&M University * David Musser, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute * Sibylle Schupp, Chalmers University of Technology * Jeremy Siek, University of Colorado (Co-Chair) * Frank Tip, IBM T.J. Watson Research (Co-Chair) PROGRAM COMMITTEE * Matthew Austern, Google * Antonio Cisternino, University of Pisa * Sean Parent, Adobe Systems Incorporated * Brian Goetz, Quiotix Corp. * Andrew Lumsdaine, Indiana University * Oege de Moor, Oxford University * Lawrence Rauchwerger, Texas A&M * Peter Sestoft, University of Copenhagen * Bjarne Stroustrup, AT&T Labs, Texas A&M * Michelle Strout, Colorado State University * Matthias Troyer, ETH Zurich * Todd Veldhuizen, University of Waterloo In addition, the organizers will serve as program committee members. Primarily, the email address lcsd07(a)cs.tamu.edu should be used for questions addressed to the organizers. KEYNOTE ADDRESS There will be an invited talk by Doug Lea, State University of New York at Oswego. Doug Lea is the author of the book "Concurrent Programming in Java", and co-author of the text "Object-Oriented System Development". He is the author of several widely used software packages and components, as well as articles, reports, and standardization efforts dealing with object oriented software development including those on specification, design and implementation techniques, distributed, concurrent, and parallel object systems, and software reusability. SYMPOSIUM GOALS AND ACTIVITIES The symposium is a scientific forum for presenting original research in the design, implementation, and evaluation of software libraries. Other major activities include the identification of open questions specific to library research and the discussion of a strategic plan for establishing library research as a field. The outcome of the symposium is a combination of research contributions and specific next steps for improving the infrastructure for library research. Participants are expected to read the accepted submissions beforehand. The technical presentations, although based on the accepted papers, should not provide mere summaries of the papers. Instead, authors are encouraged to use their presentation slots (20 + 10 mins) to bring up topics for discussion. The technical presentations are mixed with scientific and organizational discussions. The discussions aim at furthering the topics of the presentations, thus their agenda will be publicly discussed among the participants and then posted on the website of the symposium. All participants are expected to come prepared with their tentative answers or thoughts. The full-day symposium starts with a keynote talk for the stimulation of discussion and concludes with a plenary discussion that decides the specific next steps for improving the infrastructure for library research. FOR MORE INFORMATION AND UPDATES please visit the symposium's Web site, http://lcsd.cs.tamu.edu/2007 _________________________________________________ Jeremy Siek <jeremy.siek(a)colorado.edu> http://ece.colorado.edu/~siek/ Assistant Professor Dept. of Electrical and Computer Engineering University of Colorado at Boulder

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Boost 1.34.1 Released
by Thomas Witt 25 Jul '07

25 Jul '07

http://www.boost.org Boost 1.34.1, the latest version of peer-reviewed, portable C++ libraries, has been released. This is a bug fix release addressing many problems with the 1.34.0 release. It is a recommended upgrade for all users of Boost 1.34.0. For a complete list of fixes see the Boost Trac at: http://svn.boost.org/trac/boost/query?status=closed&milestone=Boost +1.34.1 Supported Compilers: New in this release is improved support for the IBM XL C/C++ compiler. Boost is tested on a wide range of compilers and platforms. Since Boost libraries rely on modern C++ features not available in all compilers, not all Boost libraries will work with every compiler. The following compilers and platforms have been extensively tested with Boost, although many other compilers and platforms will work as well. For more information, see the regression test results. * Apple GCC 4.0.1 on Mac OS X. * Borland C++ 5.8.2 on Windows. * GNU C++ o 3.2.x., 3.3.x, 3.4.x, 4.0.x, 4.1.x on Linux o 4.1.x on Solaris o 3.4.x on Windows * HP C++ for Tru64 UNIX 7.1. * HP aC++ A.06.14. * Intel C++ 9.1 on Windows, 9.0 on Linux. * Metrowerks CodeWarrior 9.4 on Windows. * Microsoft Visual C++ 6.0 (sp5, with and without STLport), 7.0, 7.1, 8.0. Note: Boost does not support the non-standard "Safe" C++ Library shipping with Visual C++ 8.0, which may result in many spurious warnings from Boost headers and other standards-conforming C++ code. To suppress these warnings, define the macro _SCL_SECURE_NO_DEPRECATE. * Sun Studio 11 on Solaris. Acknowledgements Thomas Witt managed this release. A great number of people contributed their time and expertise to make this release possible. Special thanks go to Kim Barrett consolidating Boost.Iostreams changes from various branches and Rene Rivera for general build and installation support. -- Thomas Witt witt(a)acm.org

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[UUID] Review results
by Hartmut Kaiser 30 May '07

30 May '07

Hi all, now, as Andy has finished his implementation (here: http://boost-consulting.com/vault/, file: uuid_v8.zip) we can move forward with the results of the review. This review has been kind of special in the sense that - it revealed some serious problems with the library to review (a license incompatibility problem and a security related problem around the random number generator scheme used), - it also spawned lots of dicussions on how to solve these problems. In the end we reached full agreement on what has to be done and Andy agreed to implement the changes. Normally, the mentioned problems would have prevented the acceptance of the library into Boost. OTOH, I think the following facts warrant not to reject the library in the first place: - The issues have already been discussed and a consensus has been reached on how to resolve the problems - Almost all reviewers found the proposed library to be incredibly useful and wanted to see the library accepted given the problems will be resolved - Andy fixed all of the significant problems in a short timeframe The final decision about the acceptance of the library will be made after a mini review of the proposed library (to be scheduled), which should concentrate on the new code presented by Andy and whether the mentioned problems have been appropriately fixed. Regards Hartmut Review Manager

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Re: [Boost-announce] Review Schedule - Spring 2007
by Talbot, George 25 May '07

25 May '07

I would like to help out. I haven't been a regular contributor to the mailing list--more of a silent lurker. -- George T. Talbot <gtalbot(a)locuspharma.com> > -----Original Message----- > From: boost-announce-bounces(a)lists.boost.org [mailto:boost-announce- > bounces(a)lists.boost.org] On Behalf Of Tom Brinkman > Sent: Friday, May 25, 2007 12:36 AM > To: boost(a)lists.boost.org; boost-announce(a)lists.boost.org; Ronald Garcia > Subject: [Boost-announce] Review Schedule - Spring 2007 > > We need review manager volunteers for most of the libraries > in the review queue. If your interested, let us know by > replying to this thread. Preferably, you would have a > background in the problem domain, a regular contributer to the > boost mailing list, but no association with the > library. Some of the libraries have been waiting > patiently for a volunteer for some time now. > > The review schedule is available here: > > http://www.boost.org/more/formal_review_schedule.html . > > You can read the "review manager" > requirements at the following link: > > http://www.boost.org/more/formal_review_process.htm > > Most of the libraries are located at the Boost Sandbox Vault, > located here: > > http://boost-consulting.com/vault/ > > Maintainers of the Review Queue: > > Ronald Garcia (garcia (at) cs.indiana.edu ) > Tom Brinkman (reportbase (at) gmail.com) > > If there is any errors or ommisions in this report, > please send them to Ron or Tom. > > > Here is a summary of the libraries that are in the queue. > > ------------------------------------- > Library: Exception > Author: Emil Dotchevski > Location: http://www.revergestudios.com/boost-exception/boost- > exception.zip > Review Manager: Needed > Date: Needed > Summary: > The purpose of Boost Exception is to free designers of > exception classes from having to consider what data needs to > be stored in exception objects in order for the catch site to > be able to make sense of what went wrong. When Boost Exception > is used, arbitrary values can be stored in any exception. This can be > done directly in the throw-expression, or at a later time as the > exception object propagates up the call stack. The ability to add > data to any exception object after it has been thrown is important, > because often some of the information needed to handle an > exception is unavailable at the time of the throw. > > > ----------------------------------------- > Library: Scope Exit > Author: Alexander Nasonov > Location: Boost Sandbox Vault > Review Manager: Needed > Date: Needed > Summary: > The scope-exit-arg-pp-seq is Boot.Preprocessor sequence > of identifiers that can be used inside scope-exit-body. > The direct-declarator is declarator-id followed by optional > argument of type boost::scope_exit_group (inside brackets or > after the equal sign). This construct executes scope-exit-body > at the close of the current scope. > > ----------------------------------------- > Library: Finite State Machines > Author: Andrey Semashev > Location: Boost Sandbox Vault > Review Manager: Martin Vuille > Date: Needed > Summary: > The Boost.FSM library is an implementation of FSM > (stands for Finite State Machine) programming concept. > There are many cases when a developer would like to distinguish the > behavior of a given object depending on some conditions or its > internal state. For example, when making software to control > an underground charging tourniquiet a programmer would like to > separate states in which the tourniquiet may persist: an idle state, > when the device awaits for another passenger that would like to > pass; a processing state, when the passenger have come > and put his ticket into the device; and the passing state, > when the tourniquiet lets the passenger pass through. In > fact, each state describes different reaction of the machine > at the same events (a passenger may only pass after paying > for ticket). Obviously, the tourniquiet have to be able to > change its internal state in order to function properly, > this is called state switching or transitions between > states (or just transitions for short). > > ----------------------------------- > Library: Floating Point Utilities > Author: Johan Råde > Location: Boost Sandbox Vault > http://boost-consulting.com/vault/index.php?directory=Math%20-%20Numerics > Review Manager: Needed > Date: Needed > Summary: > Proposed Additions to the Boost Math Library > > <boost/math/fpclassify.hpp> > Functions for floating point number classification: > fpclassify, isfinite, isinf, isnan, isnormal. Follows TR1. > > <boost/math/signbit.hpp> > Functions for floating point number sign bit access and modification: > signbit, copysign, changesign. Follows TR1. > > <boost/math/nonfinite_num_facets.hpp> > Facets that parse and format infinity and NaN according to the C99 > standard. > Used for portable handling of infinity and NaN in text streams. > > ----------------------------------- > Library: Switch > Author: Steven Watanabe > Location: Boost Sandbox Vault > http://tinyurl.com/yvssgx > Review Manager: Needed > Date: Needed > Introduction: The built in C/C++ switch statement is very efficient. > Unfortunately, unlike a chained if/else construct there is no easy way to > use it when the number of cases depends on a template parameter. > <TODO: more description needed> > _______________________________________________ > Unsubscribe & other changes: > http://lists.boost.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/boost-announce

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Review Schedule - Spring 2007
by Tom Brinkman 25 May '07

25 May '07

We need review manager volunteers for most of the libraries in the review queue. If your interested, let us know by replying to this thread. Preferably, you would have a background in the problem domain, a regular contributer to the boost mailing list, but no association with the library. Some of the libraries have been waiting patiently for a volunteer for some time now. The review schedule is available here: http://www.boost.org/more/formal_review_schedule.html . You can read the "review manager" requirements at the following link: http://www.boost.org/more/formal_review_process.htm Most of the libraries are located at the Boost Sandbox Vault, located here: http://boost-consulting.com/vault/ Maintainers of the Review Queue: Ronald Garcia (garcia (at) cs.indiana.edu ) Tom Brinkman (reportbase (at) gmail.com) If there is any errors or ommisions in this report, please send them to Ron or Tom. Here is a summary of the libraries that are in the queue. ------------------------------------- Library: Exception Author: Emil Dotchevski Location: http://www.revergestudios.com/boost-exception/boost-exception.zip Review Manager: Needed Date: Needed Summary: The purpose of Boost Exception is to free designers of exception classes from having to consider what data needs to be stored in exception objects in order for the catch site to be able to make sense of what went wrong. When Boost Exception is used, arbitrary values can be stored in any exception. This can be done directly in the throw-expression, or at a later time as the exception object propagates up the call stack. The ability to add data to any exception object after it has been thrown is important, because often some of the information needed to handle an exception is unavailable at the time of the throw. ----------------------------------------- Library: Scope Exit Author: Alexander Nasonov Location: Boost Sandbox Vault Review Manager: Needed Date: Needed Summary: The scope-exit-arg-pp-seq is Boot.Preprocessor sequence of identifiers that can be used inside scope-exit-body. The direct-declarator is declarator-id followed by optional argument of type boost::scope_exit_group (inside brackets or after the equal sign). This construct executes scope-exit-body at the close of the current scope. ----------------------------------------- Library: Finite State Machines Author: Andrey Semashev Location: Boost Sandbox Vault Review Manager: Martin Vuille Date: Needed Summary: The Boost.FSM library is an implementation of FSM (stands for Finite State Machine) programming concept. There are many cases when a developer would like to distinguish the behavior of a given object depending on some conditions or its internal state. For example, when making software to control an underground charging tourniquiet a programmer would like to separate states in which the tourniquiet may persist: an idle state, when the device awaits for another passenger that would like to pass; a processing state, when the passenger have come and put his ticket into the device; and the passing state, when the tourniquiet lets the passenger pass through. In fact, each state describes different reaction of the machine at the same events (a passenger may only pass after paying for ticket). Obviously, the tourniquiet have to be able to change its internal state in order to function properly, this is called state switching or transitions between states (or just transitions for short). ----------------------------------- Library: Floating Point Utilities Author: Johan Råde Location: Boost Sandbox Vault http://boost-consulting.com/vault/index.php?directory=Math%20-%20Numerics Review Manager: Needed Date: Needed Summary: Proposed Additions to the Boost Math Library <boost/math/fpclassify.hpp> Functions for floating point number classification: fpclassify, isfinite, isinf, isnan, isnormal. Follows TR1. <boost/math/signbit.hpp> Functions for floating point number sign bit access and modification: signbit, copysign, changesign. Follows TR1. <boost/math/nonfinite_num_facets.hpp> Facets that parse and format infinity and NaN according to the C99 standard. Used for portable handling of infinity and NaN in text streams. ----------------------------------- Library: Switch Author: Steven Watanabe Location: Boost Sandbox Vault http://tinyurl.com/yvssgx Review Manager: Needed Date: Needed Introduction: The built in C/C++ switch statement is very efficient. Unfortunately, unlike a chained if/else construct there is no easy way to use it when the number of cases depends on a template parameter. <TODO: more description needed>

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