July 2017 - Boost - lists.preview.boost.org

Re: [boost] [review][mp11] Reminder of ongoing formal review
by Jason Rice 22 Jul '17

22 Jul '17

Hello, my name is Jason Rice, and this is my first Boost review so please take that into consideration. I'm also new to this mailing list thing so let me know if I did something wrong here. Please consider the following review for the proposed Boost.Mp11 library: 1. Should Mp11 be accepted into Boost? Please state all conditions for acceptance explicity. ACCEPT. No conditions 2. What is your evaluation of the design? The interface is very straight forward. It is mostly templates but the user is not burdened with accessing a nested "type" with every metafunction. The list algorithms are flexible in that they take any kind of list which is very handy. I did notice that the user is burdened with ensuring that a list is not const or they will just get a "implicit instantiation of undefined template" error which doesn't really point to the problem. (e.g. when using mp_append with many lists) The `mp_` prefix is welcome if this is destined for the `std` namespace. The `tuple_apply` could probably just be called `apply` since appears to be a shim of `std::apply`. The interface of map functions accepting any list of list is very nice. 3. What is your evaluation of the implementation? The implementation is very clean. I looked at `mp_map_find_impl` and it is very concise and easy to understand. I did find it annoying though that some of the public facing functions are defined inside detail files which makes the source code a little more difficult to traverse. I'd like to see mp_product perform on par with the other libs on metaben.ch 4. What is your evaluation of the documentation? For the interface, it gets the job done. The table of contents has some text wrapping that could be fixed. There is no instructions for installation that I could find anywhere. It fails to mention that Boost.Config is a dependency. (AFAICT) 5. What is your evaluation of the potential usefulness of the library? I use Boost.Hana quite a bit. I'm currently using a library like this to help where optimization for compile-time performance is needed so it is definitely useful. 6. Did you try to use the library? With what compiler? Did you have any problems? I used it in my library Nbdl to augment my use of Boost.Hana in a couple of places. The compiler is a recent pull of the Emscripten fork of clang targeting X86. I did get stuck for a while on a weird error I mentioned before because a used a const list. I didn't like having to also install Boost.Config. (I'm not using the Boost monolith build) 7. How much effort did you put into your evaluation? A glance? A quick reading? In-depth study? I spent a few hours on it. I used mp_append and mp_with_index in my lib with great results. I just looked at the implementation of mp_map_find. I scoured the documentation looking for stuff and seeing what else was available. 8. Are you knowledgeable about the problem domain? Yes, I have done TMP and I am also a contributor to Boost.Hana. Jason Rice

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Are there libraries without ACTIVE maintainers?
by Alexander Zaitsev 22 Jul '17

22 Jul '17

Hello. I think it's very important question: are there libraries without ACTIVE maintainers? For what? Because without active maintainers we can't guarantee quality of the libraries. Is Boost community sure, that for all Boost libraries there are active maintainers? E.g. see on Boost.Property_tree - on Github repo you can find a lot of "dead" pull requests without any answer. What should we do with it?

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Re: [boost] Switch to CMake -- Analysis
by Rene Rivera 22 Jul '17

22 Jul '17

On Jul 22, 2017 4:41 AM, "Peter Dimov via Boost" <boost(a)lists.boost.org> wrote: Tim Blechmann wrote: fwiw, cmake and b2 have different architecture as one is a build system the > other is a generator for build systems. > I wonder how many of the people who repeat this mantra understand either Boost.Build or CMake. CMake does not generate build _systems_, it generates build _scripts_. So does, incidentally, Boost.Build, which is a major reason why it's so hard to understand. It would be more accurate to say that cmake generates build "scripts". And B2 generates build "instructions" (since it's internal data structure management).

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Moving CMake forward
by John Maddock 22 Jul '17

22 Jul '17

Man but there's been a lot of hot air expanded on this subject.... guys if we're going to do this, just do it. We're empiricists around here: lets see what the proponents of CMake can come up with, yes I know there are straw man proposals, but I want something that demonstrates it can fully handle the complex cases at least as well as Boost.Build, and be maintainable by CMake ignorants like myself, because lets face it, once the transition is over, library authors will have to do the maintenance grunt work as before: and if we can't easily see how to do that, then the project probably fails. As a minimal first step, what I would like to see come up for review (yes a review folks!) is a system that: * Provides users with a way to build those libraries with source via CMake. All of them together, or just some subset. * Provides an install option for all of Boost. * Is trivially easy for non-CMakers like myself to maintain. Documentation should be provided (Boost/CMake best practice is...). * Is fully compatible with current auto-linking naming on Windows (plus whatever else comes along later like address-model and architecture name mangling that's in the works and has long been requested). * Supports libraries with non-trivial build requirements (regex, locale, what others?). * Is usable by end users to be able to easily reference Boost libraries from their own CMake projects (note, might be limited to libraries with source, since header only libraries are kind of trivial). An example, and how to documentation should be provided. * It would be nice if generated VS projects were reference-able from our own solutions as well, but I accept that may not be possible. * Is at a minimum, no worse than what we have now. What else? Takers? BTW, I don't see a need for this to encompass every Boost library with source before some kind of mini-review to iron out the warts... Just hoping to move things along, John. --- This email has been checked for viruses by AVG. http://www.avg.com

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Re: [boost] Switch to CMake -- Analysis
by Thomas Heller 21 Jul '17

21 Jul '17

Am 21.07.2017 6:42 nachm. schrieb "Vinnie Falco via Boost" < boost(a)lists.boost.org>: On Fri, Jul 21, 2017 at 9:34 AM, Stefan Seefeld via Boost <boost(a)lists.boost.org> wrote: > Then *please* let's not add unrelated points to the discussion, for the > sake of getting a handle of what problems we have to solve, and how. Hmm...my apologies but I think this error is very much on-topic: >CMake Warning at cmake/share/cmake-3.8/Modules/FindBoost.cmake:762 (message): >Imported targets not available for Boost version It's a symptom of the problem. It is off topic in the regard that insisting that the problem exists won't make it go away. _______________________________________________ Unsubscribe & other changes: http://lists.boost.org/ mailman/listinfo.cgi/boost

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[review][beast] Beast Review Results
by Michael Caisse 21 Jul '17

21 Jul '17

In an effort to get you all to just read this announcement sequentially, I will start with the result: Beast is ACCEPTED into Boost without conditions The entire community is served when the Boost review process works well and I would like to personally thank each of you who took your valuable time and worked to make Boost better. We had 21 formal reviews submitted from a demographic that included both seasoned participants and first-time reviewers. It is gratifying to have such participation for what some might see as a niche library. * Thank you Vinnie for your effort to assemble a high-quality package for review and for your responsiveness on the mail-lists. GitHub, and Slack. * Thank you to the individuals that submitted their first Boost review. * Thank you to the veteran contributors and authors for continuing to devote energy to the community. I found the discussion surrounding the library beneficial and I know that Vinnie walked away with actionable items to improve Beast. -------------------- The Stats: -------------------- While the review process is not exactly tallying up votes and casting a verdict, we can gain some insight of the general, gross-scale opinion of the library. Official reviews were received from: Reviewer Accept | Reject ------------------------------------------ * Zach Laine : X * Nik Bougalis : X * Artyom Beilis : X * Peter Dimov : X * Klemens Morgenstern : X * Glen Fernades : X * Marcel Ebmer : X * Scott Determan : X * Stanislav Karchebnyy : X * Michael Larson : X * Vadim Zeitlin : X * Jared Wyles : X * Niall Douglas : X * Barrett Adair : X * Gyorgy Szekely : X * Daniela Engert : X * Jens Weller : X * Phil Endecott : X * Bjorn Reese : X * Rüdiger Berlich : X * Christopher Kohlhoff : X Most of the reviewers agreed on the inclusion of Beast into Boost and at the same time that Beast isn't a great name for the library. (Just say Boost.Beast 10-times-fast). Vinnie has a FAQ item discussing the name and his continuing use is deliberate. He has heard the petitions to change and weighed them. -------------------- Concerns: -------------------- A variety of concerns and comments were made during the review. An impressive number of items were addressed in code or documentation during the review period itself. Some of the stated concern for rejection included: * Too many templates * Run-time polymorphism / OO would be better. * Library scope is too small and provides no real value to users - This is clearly one of those value judgements and for some users the not-in-scope nature of Beast made the feature set not compelling enough to use or have as a Boost library. Other users spent time converting existing projects to use Beast. This included projects previously running POCO, libcurl, and homegrown solutions. Beast has existing commercial and open-source users. The library clearly meets the needs of some users. * Premature optimization * Security concerns * Poor support for HTTP chunking - Vinnie proposed and then later made changes addressing the chunking concerns. Unfortunately, the reviewer with the complaint did not respond to multiple requests for feedback. * Licensing - Four files have dual licenses (BSL and another). Boost's legal counsel is reviewing the situation and we hope to have guidance by the end of this week. I have not placed a condition on the acceptance of Beast based on the legal feedback because Vinnie knows licensing issues must be remedied before the repository is merged into Boost. -------------------- The Upsides: -------------------- There were lots of great things said about the Beast package. Some of these include: * Great documentation * High quality implementation. * Thorough test suites * Already being used by commercial entities and others * Lots of successful real-life conversions of existing clients/servers * Extremely responsive developer (do you sleep Vinnie?) -------------------- An Author as much as a Library: -------------------- Accepting a library into Boost is also accepting an author. Boost authors have enormous latitude in the control and modifications of their libraries. Vinnie has shown dedication to addressing issues, listening to constructive input, making changes when appropriate, and protecting his vision of what the Beast is. I believe Vinnie will serve the community well as a contributor. -------------------- Final Thoughts: -------------------- Reviews are hard. It is hard to have your work torn apart and remain considerate. It is hard to repeat answers to previously asked questions. It is hard to explain specific use-cases and why it is important a library supports them. It is difficult to critique a large body of work. It is hard to stick with conversations to make overall improvements. I was impressed with the participants in the review. We are all opinionated and passionate -- likely a prerequisite to being part of the Boost community. Thank you all for making Boost better. I'm looking forward to seeing additional libraries and application built with Beast. -- Michael Caisse Ciere Consulting ciere.com

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[OFF] Inclusive language (Was: [review][beast] Review of Beast starts today : July 1 - July 10)
by Vinícius dos Santos Oliveira 21 Jul '17

21 Jul '17

2017-07-01 21:54 GMT+02:00 Vinnie Falco via Boost <boost(a)lists.boost.org>: > Such language is non-inclusive and diminishes the stature of the list > (in my opinion). So what? What's the problem of non inclusive languages? This is just automatic reaction. Rust language community is full of this shit and is unbearable. “but-but-but the feelings... oppression”. Grow up. If you're on the Rust community, you cannot criticize design decisions that anyone will answer with “you have a very negative tone indeed”. That community is cancer (oh... I just used an oppressive word... how unpleasant I'm looking now...). And it's the same community which will **applaud** a guy who says shit about async I/O... like... “I think the proper way to use async I/O is creating threads”. The same fucker who says “I don't like Windows... that's why I don't support Windows”. As a matter of fact, I don't like Windows either, but I leave my non-important programming tastes out of my working environment (so oppressive). Next time you will want to ban blacklist/whitelist from your repos because that's racist. Stop this fucking nonsensical bullshit. You end up hiding yourself behind a prepared excuse. The only part I agree with you is the part on keeping the topic focused. That's why I'm creating another topic just for that. Niall's comment was absolutely on topic as a critique of the obvious. He could just say in other words, like “you're not programming seriously if you ignore error handling”. Or he could be so desperately concerned about politically correct. It'd be a great and unnecessary distraction. He would start to censor himself and not say everything which may be of value because he is scary of “improper language”. He didn't even need to censor himself this time (you've done this for him — a community of self-vigilant sheep... how wonderful will be our future... just like Rust and its “nazi-demographic surveys/corrections-to-be-done”). Do not mirror Rust's bad practices here. Do as Niall and try to mirror the good parts instead (e.g. error handling). Feel free to only answer after review of Beast finishes. Otherwise I'll steal focus that shouldn't be stolen now. Actually, I suggest to only answer after the review period finishes. -- Vinícius dos Santos Oliveira https://vinipsmaker.github.io/

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Strawman proposals for CMake support
by Louis Dionne 21 Jul '17

21 Jul '17

Hi, I'd like to expose two strawman proposals for adding CMake support to Boost. Both proposals would solve the following problems, with different advantages and disadvantages: (1) Users have a hard time integrating Boost into their build system, which is CMake more often than not. (2) Prospective Boost developers are sometimes driven away from submitting because they would have to learn Boost.Build, which is not widely used and has a limited knowledge base. FIRST PROPOSAL ============== The first proposal is to move completely to CMake and to render Boost.Build support optional. The possible rollout plan would look something like: 1. We start requiring that new libraries support both Boost.Build and CMake. 2. We start adding CMake support to existing libraries. This will take time. 2.1 We start moving our infrastructure to be CMake-based. 3. We release Boost with dual support for a while, letting time for things to bake. 4. We remove the requirement that Boot libraries can be built with B2. Libraries (existing and new ones) are free to provide such support, but they are not required to. This would bring CMake to the status of "primary" build system for Boost. This could be based on Paul Fultz's work in progress at [1]. This has the following advantages (in the long term): - Less technical debt because we only have one "official" build system to maintain. - The build system is uniform across all of Boost, which means it's easier for folks to maintain it and understand it. - It gives maximal flexibility to CMake-based users. However, it has the following drawbacks: - We'll need to do a wholesale migration to build system XYZ when CMake is not cool anymore. - It's harder to get buy-in from some developers that love Boost.Build SECOND PROPOSAL =============== The second proposal is to make Boost into an almost build-system agnostic collection of libraries. Basically, 1. Provide CMake package config files for all Boost libraries so that they can be used from CMake (either automatically, manually, or a mixture of both). This could be based on Peter Dimov's work at [2] (or [3], not sure which one is most current). 2. Make it possible to build CMake-based projects from Boost.Build, or the other way around, or provide a build system agnostic script to build all of Boost. This way, Boost libraries can decide whether they want to support B2 or CMake. This has the following advantages: - Possibly easier to implement - We could possibly support other build systems too (e.g. if a Boost author really wants to use scons for his/her library) - We don't have to do a wholesale move to XYZ when CMake is not cool anymore I see the following disadvantages: - Boost's infrastructure could grow more complex as a result - Our build system would be less uniform - We would have to depend on all the build systems that we want Boost libraries to be usable with My personal preference is towards the first option, since I think it would be simpler in the long term. I could certainly be convinced otherwise. There are probably other ways we can solve problems (1) and (2) exposed above. There are also certainly advantages and disadvantages that I forgot to mention above. I'd love to get some feedback on those two approaches and see whether one of them (or something else completely) can get some consensus on this list. Cheers, Louis [1]: https://github.com/boost-cmake/bcm [2]: https://github.com/pdimov/boost-cmake-demo-2 [3]: https://github.com/pdimov/boost-cmake-demo -- View this message in context: http://boost.2283326.n4.nabble.com/Strawman-proposals-for-CMake-support-tp4… Sent from the Boost - Dev mailing list archive at Nabble.com.

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A vision of Boost
by David Sankel 21 Jul '17

21 Jul '17

I got involved with Boost in 1999. I was 17, attempting to learn C++, and saw a footnote in "The C++ Standard Library" that mentioned boost.org as a place where quality C++ libraries are found. For me, it was love at first sight. Automatic pointers? Amazing. 'std::array'? Fantastic. I've been using C++ and Boost ever since. Never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined that eighteen years later I'd be sitting on the C++ standardization and Boost steering committees. As I listen in the Library Evolution Working Group I imagine what it must've been like for Beman and Dave to sit in similar meetings and ask themselves "wouldn't it be great if there were an online place that collects freely available C++ libraries and offers a peer-review process for incorporation? It'd be hugely beneficial for C++ users and the C++ standard as well." People get involved in Boost for many reasons. Some think it'll improve the chances they get their library standardized (and it's true!). Some think it'll improve their consulting or job prospects (true as well!). Others hone in on particular aspects, such as the build system, the people, or individual libraries. All these reasons are great, but for me the key was Boost's mission: to improve the way people code. At first it was more about improving the way I code, but as time went on it became more and more about helping others. For me, this is something worthwhile; worth sacrificing for. Now there are pros and cons with moving Boost to CMake, but at the center of all steering committee discussions has been the Boost mission. "How is this going to help us reach more users?" "How is this going to help us reach more developers?" "How is this going to impact the standard and the greater C++ community?" We may have made the wrong choice (though I doubt it). We may have communicated it in a non-ideal way. However, one thing is for sure: We made the decision based on furthering Boost's mission. A mission I want others to fall in love with like I have. So, we're moving to CMake. And, yes, we'll get there together. Many questions still exist and we'll have to figure out the answers as a community. The stalemate, however, is now over. -- David Sankel

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[outcome v2] ntkernel_category() custom error category appropriate for Outcome?
by Niall Douglas 21 Jul '17

21 Jul '17

I put together a custom `std::error_category` for NT kernel `NTSTATUS` error codes with error condition comparison support for both POSIX and Win32 error code spaces: https://github.com/ned14/ntkernel-error-category Question: Is this custom `std::error_category` so niche and unlikely to be useful to anybody that people would object to it being supplied in Outcome v2? Niall -- ned Productions Limited Consulting http://www.nedproductions.biz/ http://ie.linkedin.com/in/nialldouglas/

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