on Sun Sep 23 2007, Kirit Sælensminde <kirit.saelensminde-AT-gmail.com> wrote:

Glyn Matthews wrote:

...

Could it be worthwhile to re-use the look and feel from the boost documentation project?

Given that it's an un-official site I'm not sure how appropriate it would be.

It's fine, especially if there's a disclaiming. -- Dave Abrahams Boost Consulting http://www.boost-consulting.com The Astoria Seminar ==> http://www.astoriaseminar.com

Paul Baxter wrote:

...

I've spent the weekend putting together a cookbook site. I hope nobody minds.

People can explore and play with it at http://www.boostcookbook.com/

While I applaud the idea, that URL might imply a close relationship with the boost 'organisation'.

Perhaps at the very least a disclaimer that it is a 'fan' site :)

Good point. I've added a footer to all the pages.

Great work and I hope it can be tied up with all the other good material out there on wikis etc.

I hope so too. Go on, be brave, add a recipe :) K

Daniel Wallin wrote:

Kirit Sælensminde wrote:

...

I've spent the weekend putting together a cookbook site. I hope nobody minds.

People can explore and play with it at http://www.boostcookbook.com/

Any problems, issues or suggestions can be reported at http://www.boostcookbook.com/Site:/Issues

Apart from a couple of ASP pages using JavaScript the site is in C++ and makes heavy use of Boost :)

We already have a wiki. How is this different?

I think there is a real difference in intent. The wiki doesn't seem to have any way to manage short snippets of code to show how to do particular things in the way that a cookbook site does. I would have thought that the two would be complimentary, but of course I'm biased. We'll have to wait and see if anything comes of it and other people start to add recipes of their own and using the site. K

David Abrahams wrote:

on Sun Sep 23 2007, Kirit Sælensminde <kirit.saelensminde-AT-gmail.com> wrote:

...

I think there is a real difference in intent. The wiki doesn't seem to have any way to manage short snippets of code to show how to do particular things in the way that a cookbook site does.

What's wrong with

{{{ #!cpp short your_code(here) { return something_interesting(); } }}}

??

Nothing, although maybe a "Source code" prompt and a big input box is easier for casual users. It still leaves the matter of intent though. It remains to be seen how people will react to the cookbook site once the initial novelty wears off and whether or not it elicits any real number of contributions. Maybe the narrower focus will be better for people, maybe not. Time will tell. I'm quite optimistic. So long as it doesn't take time away from current documentation efforts (which it hasn't so far) and if it brings in even a fairly small number of new things that otherwise would not have been collected then I hope it will be termed a success - I will certainly think of it that way :) K

David Abrahams wrote:

on Thu Sep 27 2007, Kirit Sælensminde <kirit.saelensminde-AT-gmail.com> wrote:

...

David Abrahams wrote:

...

on Sun Sep 23 2007, Kirit Sælensminde <kirit.saelensminde-AT-gmail.com> wrote:

...

I think there is a real difference in intent. The wiki doesn't seem to have any way to manage short snippets of code to show how to do particular things in the way that a cookbook site does. What's wrong with

{{{ #!cpp short your_code(here) { return something_interesting(); } }}}

?? Nothing, although maybe a "Source code" prompt and a big input box is easier for casual users.

A prompt? Input box? For the person editing the page?

I mean from the perspective of somebody who wants to get an example up on a web site where others will find it and it can become part of a larger collection than if they just published on their own blog. And of course not everybody has their own blog or web site. Log on to the site and just go to the "Add recipe" form. You'll see that it's structured in such a way as to make putting the example on the site easy and linking it to the relevant libraries easy. Of course this is only possible because of the much narrower focus of the site.

FWIW, I would very much prefer to see Boost's public web resources consolidated in the wiki.

Which wiki? The Clearcase one or the Trac one? The wiki software that underlies the cookbook site uses syntax very similar to that of Mediawiki (there's some syntax it doesn't support and it also has some extra syntax and one or two things are done differently, but all the basic syntax is the same). This means it isn't far off either the Clearcase wiki or the Quickbooks format. I've already talked to Matias about the possibility of taking the cookbook content and exporting to quickbooks. K

Hi, On 9/24/07, Daniel Wallin <daniel@boost-consulting.com> wrote:

Kirit Sælensminde wrote: We already have a wiki. How is this different?

Well, this thread was going on for sometime, wish there was more traction from the core BOOST members. Maybe, a lot of effort could have been avoided. Having a WIKI is a battle won but having someone or a group of people willing to turn it into a COOKBOOK is the primary goal. Is there any such plans from the BOOST core community (boost-consulting)? Any leads will help in not duplicating the efforts and more importantly, confusing the BOOST user community. I sincerely appreciate the effort put in by Kirit in setting up a site at such speed, great step in spreading the BOOST library. The need for me came up as I am exploring BOOST::ASIO, BOOST::Interprocess and BOOST::Intrusive (and ACE as an alternative). I was/am not able to see a site with short recipes for me to try and compare to get a feel of the complexities I am getting into before I make that jump. with best regards, dhruva -- Dhruva Krishnamurthy Contents reflect my personal views only!

On 9/24/07, Frank Mori Hess <fmhess@speakeasy.net> wrote:

On Sunday 23 September 2007 23:45, dhruva wrote:

...

Hi,

On 9/24/07, Daniel Wallin <daniel@boost-consulting.com> wrote:

...

Kirit Sælensminde wrote: We already have a wiki. How is this different?

Well, this thread was going on for sometime, wish there was more traction from the core BOOST members. Maybe, a lot of effort could have been avoided. Having a WIKI is a battle won but having someone or a group of people willing to turn it into a COOKBOOK is the primary goal. Is there any such plans from the BOOST core community (boost-consulting)? Any leads will help in not duplicating the efforts and more importantly, confusing the BOOST user community.

There is the glue docs project on the wiki:

http://svn.boost.org/trac/boost/wiki/GlueDocsProject

We should try to work together. Your cookbook idea is similar to the "Common Tasks" Section of the Glue Docs project of IBD. You have came up with a nice way to collect examples, that can make a real difference. There are a few devels working to improve boost documentation [1], we use the boost-docs list [2] as our main communication method. It will be very good if you can post your idea there. Nice to see movement in this front :) Best regards Matias [1] http://svn.boost.org/trac/boost/wiki/ImprovingBoostDocs [2] http://lists.boost.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/boost-docs

Edd Dawson wrote:

Is there a syntax reference anywhere? I'm unsure as to whether I can link to other libraries that aren't in the "check-box area", for example. I would have liked to have done a bullet-list, too. Is this possible?

The syntax is pretty much MediaWiki with a couple of exceptions. I really must write the syntax up properly. If you look at an existing recipe and show it's properties you will see the markup used for the description, with one exception. If you want to embed pre formatted stuff, like short code examples, then prefix each line with four spaces. The spaces get collapsed in the properties view so you don't see them. E.g. http://www.boostcookbook.com/_fslib/properties.asp?id=1234820 Other formatting is * for bullet list, # for numbered list. [http://www.example.com Example link] and [[Libraries:Boost.Thread|link to library page]]. The content system is much richer than this, but I've not had time to configure it fully to combat XSS etc. so all HTML is just turned off. I've not had time to add all the libraries - there's a surprising number of them and I've been busy getting the thing working. There's a thread where you can post requests - http://www.boostcookbook.com/_fslib/_content/thread.asp?id=1234798 The site will email you when I reply to say I've added the library. I haven't even gotten around to putting in Boost.Thread for the futures example :( Don't forget that recipes can be edited later so you don't need to get them perfect first time (and we can edit each others, just like a normal wiki). So if a library you want to reference isn't there yet then post the recipe anyway, request the library and then edit the post later. The site feed will also automatically update to the new contents. I've also just added a blog. Please everybody grab a copy of the site's Atom feed to keep up to date with what's going on at http://www.boostcookbook.com/_fslib/_content/atom.asp K

Nicholas Bastin wrote:

On 9/23/07, Kirit Sælensminde <kirit.saelensminde@gmail.com> wrote:

...

I've spent the weekend putting together a cookbook site. I hope nobody minds.

I think this is excellent. However, you should clarify the license that the recipes are posted in, and make sure that anyone who downloads source or contributes source is aware of that license (even if it's public domain).

I think you're right that it should be more explicit. I think code posted has to be treated as if it is public domain, even if posted from a country where that isn't possible. As for the text, I was thinking CC-by. Not sure if anybody has strong opinions on it. K