On Fri, Apr 11, 2008 at 3:48 PM, dan marsden <danmarsden@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
<gpderetta@gmail.com> wrote:
If there is a possibility to extend the review period of another week, I'll take sometime to try the library, possibly with different compilers. This may also let other boosters have time write their own review (even if strangely so far no one else seems to have shown interest).
If you think that the review should still end the 13th, I'll wrap up a review for today.
Ditto. I have an interest in the problem domain Egg addresses, and from what I've read, I like Shunsuke's approach. But I'm just now sitting down to take a real look at it. I can wrap up a review today, but if you don't mind extending the review period, I think the discussion could benefit from more time.
Thanks, Daniel Walker
I do intend to extend the review period by a week. I appreciate that Egg is a big library, and it takes a bit of time to review fully. So no need to rush a review, but please do put them in before the end of next week. Currently the review count sadly still sits at zero, so your reviews will be gladly received thanks!
Unfortunately, I believe I'm going to have to renege on my review. After spending some time with Egg, I see that its scope goes way beyond my initial interest. I'm afraid I can't do it justice in a review at this time. However, I will share some of my first impressions. My initial interests in Egg stems from my experience last year looking into the whole lambda/result_of compatibility issue (as some of you may remember since you gave me great feedback and advice!). It was fairly simple to modify lambda to work with TR1 result_of. (I think my patch may have gotten lost in the SVN migration.) I also tried to bring lambda completely up to date by making it play nicely with TR1 bind and placeholders as well. But the project died under feature bloat; bind and placeholders were too much for me, or at least, it got too tedious to keep my interest. I think it doesn't really matter, though. Given the most recent draft of C++0x (n2588), there will no longer be result_of/lambda compatibility problems as std::result_of will always work by fiat - even with lambda-style functors. Actually, things are progressing so quickly with C++0x that Boost.Lambda itself may be made obsolete by the new lambda language extension (n2550), which apparently was adopted sometime in the last six weeks. I think that's great news! But I'm not sure what it means for Egg. Egg seems to have a lot of valuable components that may fill a niche in the existing paradigm for functional programing in C++, but the shape of that niche is changing as more classic boost techniques are transmuted into the standard and newer boost libraries come online. So there's an unfixed boundary between advancing the cause of functional programing and reinventing existing primitives. For example, in C++03 (and C++0x) there's a need for more flexible/powerful function parameters. C++0x variadic functions provides for a variable number of type-safe parameters, but what if a user wants to change their order or name them? In other words, in either standard, when users need more advanced function parameters, how does Egg relate to Boost.Parameter? Another example: there's a long standing practice of currying functions with bind, which will be standardized in C++0x. How does Egg's curring "function adaptor" relate to std::bind? (These are just some questions that jumped out at me on my first impression. I haven't spent a lot of time trying to reason through the documentation.) Still, I think it is a noble ambition to create the equivalent of Boost.Iterator for functions - i.e. to do for std::unary_function and std::binary_function what Boost.Iterator did for std::iterator. Surely Egg represents progress toward that goal. Perhaps if Egg were repackaged/refocused to become a more comprehensive Boost.Function (a true counterpart to Boost.Iterator: intuitive and accessible), it would draw wider interest. I'm not sure though, because by nature functors may be harder to package/sell than iterators. FWIW, I did build and run Egg's test suite using gcc 4.3 with both -std=c++98 and -std=c++0x. The test suite is large and seems to have good coverage. It ran with only one apparently minor glitch, which is testimony to the quality of Egg's implementation. Egg is certainly an accomplishment. Shunsuke, later this weekend I'll try to send you the test suite output and a few other comments off-list. Daniel Walker