Hi, I am sure it is pretty common for users of boost to use google to search for documentation/tutorials on their favorite library in boost. I have found that the top hits are typically not the latest documents. For example I just searched for boost,foreach and a documentation from 1.35 was the first hit. It would be great if there is a way to tell google to update their links to the latest version. Anyone knows whether this is possible, and how to make it happen? This problem probably applies to any search engine but I can only comment on google search. Thanks, Edward
I am sure it is pretty common for users of boost to use google to search for documentation/tutorials on their favorite library in boost.
Yes. Maybe there's a reasonable solution within Boost's control. I wonder if it's possible to "automatically" put a banner near the top of all documentation pages for previous releases, that warns the reader they are not looking at the current release, preferably with a link to the likely location of the current page under /doc/libs/release/... rather than e.g. /doc/libs/1_34_1/... Best regards, Gareth ************************************************************************ The information contained in this message or any of its attachments may be confidential and is intended for the exclusive use of the addressee(s). Any disclosure, reproduction, distribution or other dissemination or use of this communication is strictly prohibited without the express permission of the sender. The views expressed in this email are those of the individual and not necessarily those of Sony or Sony affiliated companies. Sony email is for business use only. This email and any response may be monitored by Sony to be in compliance with Sony's global policies and standards
I am sure it is pretty common for users of boost to use google to search for documentation/tutorials on their favorite library in boost.
Maybe there's a reasonable solution within Boost's control. I wonder if it's possible to "automatically" put a banner near the top of all documentation pages for previous releases, that warns the reader they are not looking at the current release, preferably with a link to the likely location of the current page under /doc/libs/release/... rather than e.g. /doc/libs/1_34_1/...
+1 Possible added benefit that the link to the current release might "upvote" the current release within Google's tangled machinations. - Rhys
on Wed Nov 23 2011, "Sylvester-Bradley, Gareth" <Gareth.Sylvester-Bradley-AT-eu.sony.com> wrote:
I am sure it is pretty common for users of boost to use google to search for documentation/tutorials on their favorite library in boost.
Yes.
Maybe there's a reasonable solution within Boost's control. I wonder if it's possible to "automatically" put a banner near the top of all documentation pages for previous releases, that warns the reader they are not looking at the current release, preferably with a link to the likely location of the current page under /doc/libs/release/... rather than e.g. /doc/libs/1_34_1/...
I *think* the problem is that /doc/libs/release/ redirects to /doc/libs/<latest version number>/, whereas it probably should be the other way around... Or at least they could mirror one another but be distinct pages, and all links on the site would go to /doc/libs/release/ -- Dave Abrahams BoostPro Computing http://www.boostpro.com
Hi, I just switched from boost version 1.47 to 1.48 and now I've got the effect that my compiler (msvc 2008) generates the wrong (i.e. non-const) assignment operator in the following example: /////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// struct copy_test { public: //#define USER_ASSIGN #ifdef USER_ASSIGN copy_test & operator = (const copy_test & other) { map = other.map; return *this; } #endif boost::unordered_map<std::wstring,std::wstring> map; }; void foo() { copy_test a,b; const copy_test c; a=b; a=c; // error if USER_ASSIGN is not defined } //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// I think the reason is use of BOOST_COPY_ASSIGN_REF in unordered_map.hpp:148, as it expands the assignment operator to unordered_map& operator=(const ::boost::rv<unordered_map>& x) I think the same problems arise on other compilers without rv-references and containers that use BOOST_COPY_ASSIGN_REF. regards Tobias
On 23 November 2011 16:39, Löw, Tobias (STEAG Energy Services GmbH) <Tobias.Loew@steag.com> wrote:
I just switched from boost version 1.47 to 1.48 and now I've got the effect that my compiler (msvc 2008) generates the wrong (i.e. non-const) assignment operator in the following example:
This is due to Boost.Move's move emulation. I think I should have given it a release or two to settle down before I made Boost.Unordered movable. There's some discussion of this at: https://svn.boost.org/trac/boost/ticket/6167
I am sure it is pretty common for users of boost to use google to search for documentation/tutorials on their favorite library in boost. I have found that the top hits are typically not the latest documents. For example I just searched for boost,foreach and a documentation from 1.35 was the first hit. It would be great if there is a way to tell google to update their links to the latest version. Anyone knows whether this is possible, and how to make it happen?
This problem probably applies to any search engine but I can only comment on google search.
I have a related gripe: suppose I search google for "boost fusion". The first result is: Chapter 1. Fusion 2.1 - Boost 1.48.0 www.boost.org/doc/libs/release/libs/fusion/ So far, so good! But when I click on it, the address in my address bar is: http://www.boost.org/doc/libs/1_48_0/libs/fusion/doc/html/index.html When I then navigate to some page in the documentation, and copy the link to post it somewhere (perhaps in a stackoverflow answer or a forum post), the link is to the 1.48 docs, not the latest docs. When someone then looks at the answer/post two years later and clicks on the link, they are looking at a very outdated Boost version! I think it would be better if it was set up so that when you follow a link like www.boost.org/doc/libs/release/libs/fusion/, the address in your address bar remains www.boost.org/doc/libs/release/libs/fusion/, not http://www.boost.org/doc/libs/1_48_0/libs/fusion/doc/html/index.html, and therefore the link is always pointing to the latest version. My understanding is that this is not difficult to do. If you happen to want a link specifically to 1.48 docs, you can still get it by following a "1_48" link (e.g. from the Boost -> Libraries -> 1.48 page) rather than a "release" link. Regards, Nate
On 11/23/2011 10:46 AM, Nathan Ridge wrote:
I am sure it is pretty common for users of boost to use google to search for documentation/tutorials on their favorite library in boost. I have found that the top hits are typically not the latest documents. For example I just searched for boost,foreach and a documentation from 1.35 was the first hit. It would be great if there is a way to tell google to update their links to the latest version. Anyone knows whether this is possible, and how to make it happen?
This problem probably applies to any search engine but I can only comment on google search.
I have a related gripe: suppose I search google for "boost fusion". The first result is:
Chapter 1. Fusion 2.1 - Boost 1.48.0 www.boost.org/doc/libs/release/libs/fusion/
So far, so good! But when I click on it, the address in my address bar is:
http://www.boost.org/doc/libs/1_48_0/libs/fusion/doc/html/index.html
When I then navigate to some page in the documentation, and copy the link to post it somewhere (perhaps in a stackoverflow answer or a forum post), the link is to the 1.48 docs, not the latest docs. When someone then looks at the answer/post two years later and clicks on the link, they are looking at a very outdated Boost version!
I would argue that in this case the behavior is actually good. Your SO question and answer is dated and hence fits having a dated link. Otherwise the link might point to non-existent documentation or totally changed behavior on the referred page and hence invalidating your answer. -- -- Grafik - Don't Assume Anything -- Redshift Software, Inc. - http://redshift-software.com -- rrivera/acm.org (msn) - grafik/redshift-software.com -- 102708583/icq - grafikrobot/aim,yahoo,skype,efnet,gmail
On 11/30/2011 8:13 AM, Rene Rivera wrote:
On 11/23/2011 10:46 AM, Nathan Ridge wrote:
I am sure it is pretty common for users of boost to use google to search for documentation/tutorials on their favorite library in boost. I have found that the top hits are typically not the latest documents. For example I just searched for boost,foreach and a documentation from 1.35 was the first hit. It would be great if there is a way to tell google to update their links to the latest version. Anyone knows whether this is possible, and how to make it happen?
This problem probably applies to any search engine but I can only comment on google search.
I have a related gripe: suppose I search google for "boost fusion". The first result is:
Chapter 1. Fusion 2.1 - Boost 1.48.0 www.boost.org/doc/libs/release/libs/fusion/
So far, so good! But when I click on it, the address in my address bar is:
http://www.boost.org/doc/libs/1_48_0/libs/fusion/doc/html/index.html
When I then navigate to some page in the documentation, and copy the link to post it somewhere (perhaps in a stackoverflow answer or a forum post), the link is to the 1.48 docs, not the latest docs. When someone then looks at the answer/post two years later and clicks on the link, they are looking at a very outdated Boost version!
I would argue that in this case the behavior is actually good. Your SO question and answer is dated and hence fits having a dated link. Otherwise the link might point to non-existent documentation or totally changed behavior on the referred page and hence invalidating your answer.
And now that I think about it further I would argue that having the versioned link is the most pertinent use case. The release links are only wanted in two cases: when returning search results, and when specifically referring from other documentation. The first being the subject of the OP. -- -- Grafik - Don't Assume Anything -- Redshift Software, Inc. - http://redshift-software.com -- rrivera/acm.org (msn) - grafik/redshift-software.com -- 102708583/icq - grafikrobot/aim,yahoo,skype,efnet,gmail
On Wed, Nov 30, 2011 at 8:21 AM, Rene Rivera <grafikrobot@gmail.com> wrote:
On 11/30/2011 8:13 AM, Rene Rivera wrote:
On 11/23/2011 10:46 AM, Nathan Ridge wrote:
I am sure it is pretty common for users of boost to use google to search
for documentation/tutorials on their favorite library in boost. I have found that the top hits are typically not the latest documents. For example I just searched for boost,foreach and a documentation from 1.35 was the first hit. It would be great if there is a way to tell google to update their links to the latest version. Anyone knows whether this is possible, and how to make it happen?
This problem probably applies to any search engine but I can only comment on google search.
I have a related gripe: suppose I search google for "boost fusion". The first result is:
Chapter 1. Fusion 2.1 - Boost 1.48.0 www.boost.org/doc/libs/**release/libs/fusion/<http://www.boost.org/doc/libs/release/libs/fusion/>
So far, so good! But when I click on it, the address in my address bar is:
When I then navigate to some page in the documentation, and copy the link to post it somewhere (perhaps in a stackoverflow answer or a forum post), the link is to the 1.48 docs, not the latest docs. When someone then looks at the answer/post two years later and clicks on the link, they are looking at a very outdated Boost version!
I would argue that in this case the behavior is actually good. Your SO question and answer is dated and hence fits having a dated link. Otherwise the link might point to non-existent documentation or totally changed behavior on the referred page and hence invalidating your answer.
And now that I think about it further I would argue that having the versioned link is the most pertinent use case. The release links are only wanted in two cases: when returning search results, and when specifically referring from other documentation. The first being the subject of the OP.
PS. Which suggest the most favorable solution as: 1. Change the release URLs to be temporary redirects (to make search engines not discount the release URLs) 2. Block search crawlers from indexing the versioned trees of the docs. Which should have the effect of searches returning the release links always without loosing the redirects. -- -- -- Grafik - Don't Assume Anything -- Redshift Software, Inc. - http://redshift-software.com -- rrivera/acm.org - grafik/redshift-software.com -- 102708583/icq - grafikrobot/aim - grafikrobot/yahoo
on Wed Nov 30 2011, Rene Rivera <grafikrobot-AT-gmail.com> wrote:
On Wed, Nov 30, 2011 at 8:21 AM, Rene Rivera <grafikrobot@gmail.com> wrote:
On 11/30/2011 8:13 AM, Rene Rivera wrote:
I would argue that in this case the behavior is actually good. Your SO question and answer is dated and hence fits having a dated link. Otherwise the link might point to non-existent documentation or totally changed behavior on the referred page and hence invalidating your answer.
And now that I think about it further I would argue that having the versioned link is the most pertinent use case. The release links are only wanted in two cases: when returning search results, and when specifically referring from other documentation. The first being the subject of the OP.
PS. Which suggest the most favorable solution as:
1. Change the release URLs to be temporary redirects (to make search engines not discount the release URLs) 2. Block search crawlers from indexing the versioned trees of the docs.
Which should have the effect of searches returning the release links always without loosing the redirects.
I am not an expert in these things, but I do know the current situation is kinda messed up and if you think you know what to do about it, please be my guest! -- Dave Abrahams BoostPro Computing http://www.boostpro.com
On 18 December 2011 19:37, Dave Abrahams <dave@boostpro.com> wrote:
I am not an expert in these things, but I do know the current situation is kinda messed up and if you think you know what to do about it, please be my guest!
Due to some changes I made to the site the google results for phrases such as 'boost foreach' have improved over the last few weeks. There's more that can be done, but this isn't really something I want to spend a lot of time on.
On 12/18/2011 2:45 PM, Daniel James wrote:
On 18 December 2011 19:37, Dave Abrahams<dave@boostpro.com> wrote:
I am not an expert in these things, but I do know the current situation is kinda messed up and if you think you know what to do about it, please be my guest!
Due to some changes I made to the site the google results for phrases such as 'boost foreach' have improved over the last few weeks. There's more that can be done, but this isn't really something I want to spend a lot of time on.
I've just put in the change for #1 that I mentioned (the redirect codes). I'll see about crawling the old docs soon. -- -- Grafik - Don't Assume Anything -- Redshift Software, Inc. - http://redshift-software.com -- rrivera/acm.org (msn) - grafik/redshift-software.com -- 102708583/icq - grafikrobot/aim,yahoo,skype,efnet,gmail
I would like to add that using redirects, bookmarking of pages is very difficult. I usually prefer to bookmark a link to the release version. To do that I create a bookmark and then go to "manage bookmarks" and manually replace the version number with the string "release" which is a bit cumbersome. I would prefer to have release links which do not redirect me somewhere else. Best regards, Kai On 12/19/11, Rene Rivera <grafikrobot@gmail.com> wrote:
On 12/18/2011 2:45 PM, Daniel James wrote:
On 18 December 2011 19:37, Dave Abrahams<dave@boostpro.com> wrote:
I am not an expert in these things, but I do know the current situation is kinda messed up and if you think you know what to do about it, please be my guest!
Due to some changes I made to the site the google results for phrases such as 'boost foreach' have improved over the last few weeks. There's more that can be done, but this isn't really something I want to spend a lot of time on.
I've just put in the change for #1 that I mentioned (the redirect codes). I'll see about crawling the old docs soon.
-- -- Grafik - Don't Assume Anything -- Redshift Software, Inc. - http://redshift-software.com -- rrivera/acm.org (msn) - grafik/redshift-software.com -- 102708583/icq - grafikrobot/aim,yahoo,skype,efnet,gmail
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On Tue, Dec 20, 2011 at 7:25 PM, Kai Schroeder <kaischroeder3@googlemail.com> wrote:
I would like to add that using redirects, bookmarking of pages is very difficult. I usually prefer to bookmark a link to the release version. To do that I create a bookmark and then go to "manage bookmarks" and manually replace the version number with the string "release" which is a bit cumbersome. I would prefer to have release links which do not redirect me somewhere else.
I'd like to see better URLs as well. Maybe instead of "www.boost.org/doc/libs/1_48_0/doc/html/any.html" just "boost.org/d/any"? Olaf
On 19 December 2011 05:32, Rene Rivera <grafikrobot@gmail.com> wrote:
I've just put in the change for #1 that I mentioned (the redirect codes).
It was using 302, which as far as I know is the right code to use. Google certainly did the right thing ('boost 1.48' was appearing for release urls pretty soon).
I'll see about crawling the old docs soon.
I don't think it's a good idea to block them. It can be useful to search for old documentation and often if you block google's bot it will still return links to those pages based on the pages which link to them (it did this for the documentation when it was blocked before). The correct thing to do is to structure the site so that it directs google (and users) to the more useful pages. I've been working on this, and although no one seems to have noticed, the current search results are a lot better than they used to be. From the beginning of this thread: On 23 November 2011 15:34, Edward Rankin <erankin@gmail.com> wrote:
For example I just searched for boost,foreach and a documentation from 1.35 was the first hit. It would be great if there is a way to tell google to update their links to the latest version.
If you search for it now, 1.48 comes first (at least it does for me).
On 12/20/2011 2:20 PM, Daniel James wrote:
On 19 December 2011 05:32, Rene Rivera<grafikrobot@gmail.com> wrote:
I've just put in the change for #1 that I mentioned (the redirect codes).
It was using 302, which as far as I know is the right code to use. Google certainly did the right thing ('boost 1.48' was appearing for release urls pretty soon).
Hm? I thought it was returning the default of "301" for those. But reading the Apache docs now tells me I was wrong in that belief :-\ But reading the HTTP spec, and the commentary about what browsers likely do and should do.. It seems like 303 is a better choice for clients instead of 302 while having the same effect on crawlers. Particularly the difference about 302 not "technically" allowing the caching of the target page. While the 303 explicitly allows the caching of the target. Of course, it also says that most clients treat 302 as if it where a 303 anyway. But it seems that being explicit here covers all the clients.
I'll see about crawling the old docs soon.
I don't think it's a good idea to block them. It can be useful to search for old documentation and often if you block google's bot it will still return links to those pages based on the pages which link to them (it did this for the documentation when it was blocked before).
Good point.
The correct thing to do is to structure the site so that it directs google (and users) to the more useful pages. I've been working on this, and although no one seems to have noticed,
For what it's worth.. I did notice :-)
the current search results are a lot better than they used to be. From the beginning of this thread:
On 23 November 2011 15:34, Edward Rankin<erankin@gmail.com> wrote:
For example I just searched for boost,foreach and a documentation from 1.35 was the first hit. It would be great if there is a way to tell google to update their links to the latest version.
If you search for it now, 1.48 comes first (at least it does for me).
OK, I'll abandon the crawl prevention on old docs. And reassess in the future what else we can do. -- -- Grafik - Don't Assume Anything -- Redshift Software, Inc. - http://redshift-software.com -- rrivera/acm.org (msn) - grafik/redshift-software.com -- 102708583/icq - grafikrobot/aim,yahoo,skype,efnet,gmail
on Wed Dec 21 2011, Rene Rivera <grafikrobot-AT-gmail.com> wrote:
OK, I'll abandon the crawl prevention on old docs. And reassess in the future what else we can do.
I just can't help thinking that this must be a solved problem. What do other projects do? -- Dave Abrahams BoostPro Computing http://www.boostpro.com
I would argue that in this case the behavior is actually good. Your SO question and answer is dated and hence fits having a dated link. Otherwise the link might point to non-existent documentation or totally changed behavior on the referred page and hence invalidating your answer.
While I agree with that, what constantly happens to me is this: I search for something, say "boost foreach". I click the outdated (say 1.35) link. I edit the url to replace 35 by 48 and finally I can see my doc. Sometimes the doc changed and now the url with 1.48 is a 404. So I curse and remove the library page part from the url and finally get my doc. I know that I'm probably supposed to click the links on boost.org's documentation section to reach the latest doc in the first place to avoid myself that tedious dance I just described, but I think I'm far from the only one searching the docs using google. I think a lot of trouble would be avoided by simply adding links to /latest on all the old docs, something like an header that'd say "This is the doc for 1.35, click here for the latest boost documentation"... I reckon it's the best we can do given the constraints. SO links would still be valid, and it'd reduce my dance to two clicks. For urls that are 404 it'd just redirect to the lib's index. Philippe
I think a lot of trouble would be avoided by simply adding links to /latest on all the old docs, something like an header that'd say "This is the doc for 1.35, click here for the latest boost documentation"... I reckon it's the best we can do given the constraints. SO links would still be valid, and it'd reduce my dance to two clicks. For urls that are 404 it'd just redirect to the lib's index.
+1 I think that would be helpful. Regards, Nate
On 11/30/2011 10:42 AM, Nathan Ridge wrote:
I think a lot of trouble would be avoided by simply adding links to /latest on all the old docs, something like an header that'd say "This is the doc for 1.35, click here for the latest boost documentation"... I reckon it's the best we can do given the constraints. SO links would still be valid, and it'd reduce my dance to two clicks. For urls that are 404 it'd just redirect to the lib's index.
+1 I think that would be helpful.
Unfortunately we can't do that as not all Boost libraries have the common header to put such a link into. -- -- Grafik - Don't Assume Anything -- Redshift Software, Inc. - http://redshift-software.com -- rrivera/acm.org (msn) - grafik/redshift-software.com -- 102708583/icq - grafikrobot/aim,yahoo,skype,efnet,gmail
on Thu Dec 01 2011, Rene Rivera <grafikrobot-AT-gmail.com> wrote:
On 11/30/2011 10:42 AM, Nathan Ridge wrote:
I think a lot of trouble would be avoided by simply adding links to /latest on all the old docs, something like an header that'd say "This is the doc for 1.35, click here for the latest boost documentation"... I reckon it's the best we can do given the constraints. SO links would still be valid, and it'd reduce my dance to two clicks. For urls that are 404 it'd just redirect to the lib's index.
+1 I think that would be helpful.
Unfortunately we can't do that as not all Boost libraries have the common header to put such a link into.
Those exceptions could either acquire said common header, or we could just link to a page further up from where the current docs can be found. -- Dave Abrahams BoostPro Computing http://www.boostpro.com
On 18 December 2011 19:38, Dave Abrahams <dave@boostpro.com> wrote:
on Thu Dec 01 2011, Rene Rivera <grafikrobot-AT-gmail.com> wrote:
Unfortunately we can't do that as not all Boost libraries have the common header to put such a link into.
Those exceptions could either acquire said common header, or we could just link to a page further up from where the current docs can be found.
Easier said than done. For example, frames and badly written html are both problems. I just checked into the beta site an unfinished implementation of 'latest version' links that I wrote a couple of weeks ago. But it's pretty bad, there often isn't an equivalent page in the latest version, and if there is, it could quite possibly be documenting a completely different thing.
participants (11)
-
Daniel James -
Dave Abrahams -
Edward Rankin -
Kai Schroeder -
Löw, Tobias (STEAG Energy Services GmbH) -
Nathan Ridge -
Olaf van der Spek -
Philippe Vaucher -
Rene Rivera -
Rhys Ulerich -
Sylvester-Bradley, Gareth