On Oct 6, 2006, at 7:23 AM, Andy Little wrote:
I believe it is much easier to criticize and mentally destruct something than it is to actually create and defend it.
Criticism is what a review is about. If I'm not allowed to criticise , seems no point in having a review. And I'm not sure what you mean by mentally destroying... could you elaborate? Anything worthwhile is robust enough to withstand criticism. Please lets not all lets have to sit about saying how Nice everything is.
Andy, you are absolutely correct that library reviews involve criticism, but how we criticize is very important. The goal of a Boost library review is to improve the library through constructive criticism, and at the end we make a decision: is the library good enough at this point to accept it into Boost? If not, we hope to have provided enough constructive criticism for it to be improved and accepted at a later time. I believe that the Serialization library is our best example of how constructive criticism in a review resulted in an excellent library that was accepted in its second review, and I hope we can have more such success stories. You brought up some valid points in your initial message, and these points need to be discussed. But you crossed a line when asking whether the authors are interested in defending their library against your criticisms. They are interested, or they would not have brought their library up for review. If you don't get a response to your question quickly, be patient; if it takes too long or you don't get an answer you feel is sufficient, ask again or try to rephrase the question. E-mail is a poor communication medium, and even if messages rarely get lost in transmission, they often get drowned in the deluge of other messages. Don't assume that an unanswered message means you're being ignored. Given constructively, criticism will be taken better and have more positive effects, and you'll get the answers you want. Doug, Boost Moderator