What I really need is a better way to assess the library along the above dimensions. Making this type of information publically available would help me decide which libraries to consider and would let authors know what they need to address to make their libraries more popular. <Rest of description snipped>
That sounds interesting. I wonder though if such critique may bruise a few egos and have the opposite effect of having them give up on the project?
LOL - Any boost developer who has gone through the review process has demonstrated to have a very, very thck skin.
Also, if a library went through a major change/redesign, how would the new scores reflect this?
This is an "implementation detail". I'm sure that this scheme would be refined if necessary. For example, as one of the pieces of data collected, the (boost) version number of the library would be included so statistics could reflect the version as well. And while I'm at it, I would like other information for the serialization library. for example: what OS is used what kind of application which compiler how many applications use how many copies of the application are delivered. e.g. I would love to find that there are 1,000,000 uses of the serialization library (as part of other applications) That might give me pause if I'm considering a breaking change. If I knew that there are alot of unhappy users of the library on a particular compiler - that would be helpful information. Of course this doesn't have to be sponsored or sanctioned by boost. In fact, it would probably be better if it weren't thereby maintaining credibility as an unbias source. My real point is that I have more faith on a distributed "market like" system than a centralized "concensus / rule / procedure" based one to keep quality improving. Robert Ramey