"Andreas Huber" <ahd6974-spamgroupstrap@yahoo.com> writes:
I ended up getting into an unpleasant exchange with the library author, who repeatedly challenged me to suggest concrete changes to the design to fix the perceived problems. I had examined the library more thoroughly, my guess is that I would have been able to suggest improvements. I don't blame the library author in this case; it's only natural to ask for an alternate design when you are told that your design is flawed;
Maybe, but you shouldn't feel guilty. The onus is on the proposer to come up with a good design.
The question is: How far does a library author need to go in providing evidence that the design is "good" (which often means different things to different people, but lets ignore that for the moment)? Does a proposer need to "prove" that the library design is the best currently imaginable?
A proposer needs to make a judgement call about which objections are worth trying to satisfy. Sorry, there aren't any hard and fast rules here.
While this might be possible for some libraries I don't think it is generally feasible. More specifically, if a raised point is so vague that the library author is at a complete loss exactly how an improvement could be implemented I think it is only fair to turn the roles around and require the reviewer to at least outline how the improvement is implementable within the given requirements.
You can't "require" anything of the reviewer. It's okay to ask, of course. -- Dave Abrahams Boost Consulting www.boost-consulting.com