Tom Brinkman wrote:
But why go to the trouble of adding it as a top-level boost library to a library. What is so special about the futures library?
Why does Anthony not just slip "futures" it into boost::threads. He maintains that library. Its a non-issue. He doesn't need our approval to do that.
Considering the way this review has floundered at this point, that is the best outcome that I can see.
If we put it up for review again as top-level boost library, it will need to be fully documented, with samples and test cases. The library has been on the review boards for over a year. Plenty of time for these to have been added.
IMHO, such approach simply ruins the review process entirely. Library maintainers are free to improve their libraries without a review, but this case is clearly not a simple improvement, and it should be properly reviewed. If it doesn't pass the review, it should be rejected at this point. Futures are no different from any other library in this regard. If we establish practice of such privileged library submission, we have to admit that reviews procedure doesn't work and have to be revised. As for conformance to the C++0x interface, I don't consider this relevant in any way to the library submission process. This is one of the submitted libraries feature, which may or may not be a prerequisite for the evaluated library. Fulfilling this prerequisite doesn't automatically mean acceptance. Personally, I don't consider strict conformance as a must. We use dosens of libraries that don't have analogues in C++ standard and it doesn't make them any less useful. All above is strictly my personal opinion.