On 19 March 2010 22:13, Edward Diener <eldiener@tropicsoft.com> wrote:
If I may answer that, as an end-user, I first want to say that from the end-users perspective the problems with Boost are highly overrated.
Given any perspective, I don't know how to rate the concerns people bring up. We have no metrics. Addressing the needs of those who are vocal at the expense of those who are silent may not turn out to be a sound strategy. Someone brought up the UUID issue. Is it a one off anomaly, or are there many similar issues? Honestly, I don't know. I do know that we will never prevent the isolated incidents, but we do need to address actual (not theoretical) systemic problems. Are monolithic releases holding adoption back? I don't know. As one of the people who championed Boost into my company, that was a slight extra burden after getting over the hurdle of allowing any part of Boost in our system. As a developer, I'm glad the whole thing is there, because I never would have been able to successfully fight for every single library we've used over the years. IMNSHO, Boost works (and it does work) because 1. The technical burden on volunteer developers is high while the bureaucratic burden on volunteer developers is low. 2. Volunteers do a lot of rarely thanked work behind the scenes. Unfortunately, most of the "fixes" that are proposed are more along the lines of "here is what I want the volunteers to do" instead of "here is what I am volunteering to do". In my experience, the more you try to dictate to the volunteers what they must do, the fewer volunteers you end up with. I'm not arguing for no direction or rules; rather, it is a delicate balance. If one of the problems is that there aren't enough volunteers (say, as in finding review managers), making that job harder will accomplish the opposite of getting more review managers. Managing volunteers is hard, because the rules are opposite of managing paid employees. The start of this thread was someone saying we have to talk about Dave Abrahams concerns on Boost development. Somewhere in the thread came a rebuttal of "This won't boost Boost.". In my view, we are talking, but Dave is doing. Dave *is* boosting Boost. Talk is cheap. Not much will happen if you are only doing it hoping that someone else will carry your proposal. Instead, when you mention the problems, also mention what you are willing to do to help fix it. You don't have to do it alone; just make a commitment that is more than just talking. Finally, someone mentioned "buying a beer" for the rarely thanked Boost volunteers at BoostCon. While nice, a better gesture would be to volunteer yourself for something. The Boost community is what we make of it. Really. -- Nevin Liber <mailto:nevin@eviloverlord.com> (847) 691-1404