On 11/26/2014 6:46 PM, Edward Diener wrote:
This is the results from the recent review of the Sort library of Steven Ross.
First I would like to thank all those who made comments during the review, whether or not they officially gave a final Yes or No vote to whether the Sort library should be accepted as a Boost library. This list includes:
Niall Douglas, Julian Gonggrijp, Phil Endecott, Vladimir Prus, Mathias Gaunard, Jeremy Murphy, Peter Dimov, Robert Ramey, Adam Walling, Anthony Polukhin, Phil Endecott, Paul Bristow, Thijs (M.A.) van den Berg Dupuis Etienne, and Frank Gennari
If I have missed anyone I do apologize.
Secondly I would like to thank Steven Ross for patiently answering all of the review comments to the best of his ability.
My tally of Yes and No votes for acceptance are:
Yes votes (5) :
Niall Douglas ( conditional ), Julian Gonggrijp ( conditional ), Frank Gennari, Phil Endecott, Paul Bristow.
No votes (3) :
Vladimir Prus, Adam Walling ( conditional ), Anthony Polukhin
I believe the condtional Yes vote from Julian Gonggrijp was completely met in the discussions of issues with Steven Ross and the conditional Yes vote from Niall Douglass was almost completely met in the discussion with Steven Ross about the issues mentioned.
I want to also mention that the conditional No vote by Adam Walling has an implied Yes vote to it if the Sort library were one among other sort implementations.
Since my final decision is not entirely based on the Yes and No votes I want to adumbrate some of the major issues brought up by the review without necessarily focussing on every one of the people who brought them up initially, as well as my own reactions to them as Review Manager.
1) The first major issue was whether a library whose basic merit lies in its algorithm and its speed/space constraints needs better theoretical backing. A number of reviewers discussed this after it was brought up. I tend to agree with reviewers that while the best theoretical basis is always desirable, it is not necessary for a Boost library whose empirical evidence can be and has been measured by its implementor and can be measured by any user. Furthermore Steven Ross has provided an extensive discussion in his documentation, as well as his original paper, about the theoretical merits of his technique. While much of this discussion is probably beyond the understanding of any but sorting experts and afficionados ( I am neither ) enough of it adequately explains the basic ideas behind SpreadSort for those who understand and have knowledge of basic sorting ideas and popular sorting techniques ( that's my province ).
2) An important issue is the need for the Sorting library to provide extensive timing charts/tables comparing SpreadSort to at least std::sort ( and possibly other popular mainstream sorts ) with both different numbers of sort keys and different initial unsorted distributions.
Please ignore as I accidentally hit the Send button too soon. The full review will appear shortly.