Robert Ramey wrote:
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.
With all due respect, I'd like to preserve that right. It's my library anyway. In as much as I am not forcing you to provide a "cute" name for Serialization, please don't force me to do acronyms or some such. On a related note, I'm happy with the cute name "Boost" Libraries, instead of something bland like... hah! I can't even think of a name or acronym. Hmmm... C++ SLE? "standard library extensions". Yuk!
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.
Agreed! Regards, -- Joel de Guzman http://www.boostpro.com http://spirit.sf.net