This was sent to me off list. Presumably by mistake so I'm replying here. 2009/11/26 Tim Blechmann <tim@klingt.org>:
(And a state not damned with faint praise like 'unstable' - which is perhaps better described as 'likely_to_be_improved' rather than actively 'not stable').
The apache incubator might be a more appropriate inspiration than Debian unstable.
the current sandbox layout has the disadvantage, that single projects are present as sandbox/mylib, which do not run or compile on their own, but require a full set of the boost headers. in order to try out one sandbox library, you need to get the boost checkout/tarball and copy it to sandbox/mylib or vice versa ...
it would be nice to have an `integrated' sandbox repository, though, which especially would help when synchronizing the development of libraries (e.g. boost.lockfree and boost.atomic). the linux kernel development has trees like linux-next or tip, which focus on bringing the sources together instead of keeping them apart (as in the current sandbox). for me personally, the boost sandbox does not help when working on code, but only when distributing the code ...
best, tim
-- tim@klingt.org http://tim.klingt.org
Linux is like a wigwam: no windows, no gates, apache inside, stable.
We used to have an integrated sandbox, but it became a mess as everything got out of sync so we moved over to the current model. This was partly because we were using CVS at the time which doesn't have great support for branching. But even with better tools you're going to need someone to manage such a tree. It is possible to set up a library so that it can be used outside of the main tree, although I don't think it's very well documented and not many people bother. Daniel