Boost Library Incubator recommended by steering committee
The Boost Library Incubator (www.blincubator.com) is a web site conceived, designed, and implemented to alleviate the log-jam of libraries waiting to be reviewed by Boost. It helps new library submitters through the process, encourages development of an initial user base, and accumulates feedback in the form of comments, test results and Boost style reviews. The Boost Steering Committee has voted to recommend using the Boost Library Incubator as a prelude to getting a library reviewed by Boost. The Steering Committee recommends libraries currently in the Boost review queue be added to the Incubator by their developers. The relationship between Boost and the Incubator is purely informal, but there as several things Boosters can do to help make the Incubator a success. Authors can submit their libraries and respond to feedback. Users can experiment with submitted libraries and provide feedback on their experience. WordPress/php developers can contribute enhancements to the Boost Library Incubator implementation. The steering committee extends its thanks to Robert Ramey for launching the Boost Library Incubator! --The Boost Steering Committee
As frequent user of boost libraries I think it is worthwhile idea. Moreover, once blincubator gets past it teething problems - it would be great if there was a link directing to it on the main page of boost.org. -- Andrzej ps. Robert must have put some crafty code into the website - right now it manages to reliably blow out my Firefox (-; W dniu 2014-06-10 22:15, Beman Dawes pisze:
The Boost Library Incubator (www.blincubator.com) is a web site conceived, designed, and implemented to alleviate the log-jam of libraries waiting to be reviewed by Boost. It helps new library submitters through the process, encourages development of an initial user base, and accumulates feedback in the form of comments, test results and Boost style reviews.
The Boost Steering Committee has voted to recommend using the Boost Library Incubator as a prelude to getting a library reviewed by Boost. The Steering Committee recommends libraries currently in the Boost review queue be added to the Incubator by their developers.
The relationship between Boost and the Incubator is purely informal, but there as several things Boosters can do to help make the Incubator a success. Authors can submit their libraries and respond to feedback. Users can experiment with submitted libraries and provide feedback on their experience. WordPress/php developers can contribute enhancements to the Boost Library Incubator implementation.
The steering committee extends its thanks to Robert Ramey for launching the Boost Library Incubator!
--The Boost Steering Committee
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Andrzej Horoszczak wrote
As frequent user of boost libraries I think it is worthwhile idea.
Moreover, once blincubator gets past it teething problems - it would be great if there was a link directing to it on the main page of boost.org.
Hmmm - I think that every where on the site where boost is mentioned - twice on the introduction alone - it's a hot link to boost.org I was wary about providing boost.org with plausibility since it's a speculative personal venture. It's my personal creation than a product of consensus as boost is. The strong endorsement from boost is much appreciated - but I wasn't counting on it.
ps. Robert must have put some crafty code into the website - right now it manages to reliably blow out my Firefox (-;
The whole wordpress/php/html/jquery/javascript/css/xml/xslt thing is much messier than C++ (really - unbelievable but true). Then wordpress has a very sophisticated and hard to understand method of plug-ins. Then there's thousands of plug-ins to choose from. I used 12 (so far) I probably tried 40 to select these 12. Quality is all over the place. Then you can only verify that the thing works through experimentation. There really is no other way. It's amazing it works at all. Note that there is a section "About" where you can post suggestions regarding the website itself. crashing firefox would be interesting to know. Robert Ramey -- View this message in context: http://boost.2283326.n4.nabble.com/Boost-Library-Incubator-recommended-by-st... Sent from the Boost - Dev mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
On Wed, Jun 18, 2014 at 6:32 AM, Robert Ramey
ps. Robert must have put some crafty code into the website - right now it manages to reliably blow out my Firefox (-;
The whole wordpress/php/html/jquery/javascript/css/xml/xslt thing is much messier than C++ (really - unbelievable but true). Then wordpress has a very sophisticated and hard to understand method of plug-ins. Then there's thousands of plug-ins to choose from. I used 12 (so far) I probably tried 40 to select these 12. Quality is all over the place. Then you can only verify that the thing works through experimentation. There really is no other way. It's amazing it works at all.
Note that there is a section "About" where you can post suggestions regarding the website itself. crashing firefox would be interesting to know.
By the way there is indeed a lot of problems from my pov and I was thinking (by experience) that if you want this kind of website/application, you probably want to stay away from wordpress... but then you'll have to develop a bit. Certainly worth it but I can't help with that so I understand the Wordpress choice (even if I think in the end it will be more time burnt than help). A few issues I saw yesterday (using Chrome): - it's not clear where I should report, the "contact the author" have no link; - the library list by category is empty for me (I see a page with header and all the theme but no content); - if I click on a library name in the alphabetical library list, I end up in a "Library Submission" page which have all the fields pre-filled with the library information but still modifiable. It is not clear to me if this is a voluntary hack to display these info without having to implement another page or if it is just a bug and it should have been another page. In any way; the "Library Submission" title and the writable fields makes it seems buggy. - having the front page text stretch all the width of the screen makes it very hard to read, both because it makes too long lines and because there is no space between the left and right border and the text itself. This is against text ergonomic "rules" and I should point that even scientific studies seem to suggest that too long lines makes it hard to read. Just in case, I don't believe that asking the user to change his window's size to read that particular website is reasonable. By the way this problem is also apparent in a lot of Boost libraries documentation and I do still have a hard time with reading most boost doc because of this. In any way, thanks for the hard work; I know it's not easy to setup this kind of tool correctly.
Klaim - Joël Lamotte wrote
On Wed, Jun 18, 2014 at 6:32 AM, Robert Ramey <
ramey@
> wrote:
ps. Robert must have put some crafty code into the website - right now it manages to reliably blow out my Firefox (-;
Hmmm - I just went through it with firefox (on my MAC) and didn't find any problems.
Note that there is a section "About" where you can post suggestions regarding the website itself. crashing firefox would be interesting to know.
By the way there is indeed a lot of problems from my pov and I was thinking (by experience) that if you want this kind of website/application, you probably want to stay away from wordpress... but then you'll have to develop a bit. Certainly worth it but I can't help with that so I understand the Wordpress choice (even if I think in the end it will be more time burnt than help).
I touched upon alternatives in the "About" section of the website. Short version - I tried a bunch of them. Note: Not just considered or reviews - actually tried them. Nothing came close to wordpress in being able to produce what I wanted with the effort I had available. Basically I managed to get everything I wanted with 1000 lines of code. I don't believe any of the alternatives could have done that. As for being "messy" - they all are based in a similar combination of the tools mentioned above. Bottom line I just don't think any of the other alternatives would have come close to this.
A few issues I saw yesterday (using Chrome): - it's not clear where I should report, the "contact the author" have no link;
- the library list by category is empty for me (I see a page with header and all the theme but no content);
I added the "About this website" to explain the above. It has also a place for comments and discussion. My intent was that this be a place for gathering this type of feed back.
- if I click on a library name in the alphabetical library list, I end up in a "Library Submission" page which have all the fields pre-filled with the library information but still modifiable. It is not clear to me if this is a voluntary hack to display these info without having to implement another page or if it is just a bug and it should have been another page. In any way; the "Library Submission" title and the writable fields makes it seems buggy.
It's a deliberate choice to reuse code and forms. The form is updateable by the author and read only for everyone else. This saved considerable code and I would be loath to change it. But I'm willing to entertain suggestions to make the intent more obvious and make it seem less buggy.
- having the front page text stretch all the width of the screen makes it very hard to read, both because it makes too long lines and because there is no space between the left and right border and the text itself. This is against text ergonomic "rules" and I should point that even scientific studies seem to suggest that too long lines makes it hard to read.
This is my personal preference. Personally it drives me crazy to have he web pages not fit on browser window. This way I can just adjust the window to the size and shape I like and the text is (almost) layer out perfectly. Just in case, I don't believe that asking the user to change his window's size to read that particular website is reasonable.
By the way this problem is also apparent in a lot of Boost libraries documentation and I do still have a hard time with reading most boost doc because of this.
again - I love the way the boost documentation adjusts to the current window size. I think ALL web pages should work this way. I just don't see anyway to reconcile these points of view.
In any way, thanks for the hard work; I know it's not easy to setup this kind of tool correctly.
LOL - I'm going to ignore the implication that it's currently setup incorrectly. Thanks for taking the time to comment on this. Robert Ramey _______________________________________________ Unsubscribe & other changes: http://lists.boost.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/boost -- View this message in context: http://boost.2283326.n4.nabble.com/Boost-Library-Incubator-recommended-by-st... Sent from the Boost - Dev mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
On June 18, 2014 11:29:39 AM EDT, Robert Ramey
Klaim - Joël Lamotte wrote
On Wed, Jun 18, 2014 at 6:32 AM, Robert Ramey <
ramey@
> wrote:
ps. Robert must have put some crafty code into the website - right now it manages to reliably blow out my Firefox (-;
Hmmm - I just went through it with firefox (on my MAC) and didn't find any problems.
FYI: I had no problems with FF. ___ Rob (Sent from my portable computation engine)
On Wed, Jun 18, 2014 at 5:29 PM, Robert Ramey
Klaim - Joël Lamotte wrote
On Wed, Jun 18, 2014 at 6:32 AM, Robert Ramey <
ramey@
> wrote:
ps. Robert must have put some crafty code into the website - right now it manages to reliably blow out my Firefox (-;
Hmmm - I just went through it with firefox (on my MAC) and didn't find any problems.
Just to clarify: that quote was not not from me.
By the way there is indeed a lot of problems from my pov and I was thinking (by experience) that if you want this kind of website/application, you probably want to stay away from wordpress... but then you'll have to develop a bit. Certainly worth it but I can't help with that so I understand the Wordpress choice (even if I think in the end it will be more time burnt than help).
I touched upon alternatives in the "About" section of the website. Short version - I tried a bunch of them. Note: Not just considered or reviews - actually tried them. Nothing came close to wordpress in being able to produce what I wanted with the effort I had available. Basically I managed to get everything I wanted with 1000 lines of code. I don't believe any of the alternatives could have done that. As for being "messy" - they all are based in a similar combination of the tools mentioned above. Bottom line I just don't think any of the other alternatives would have come close to this.
I wouldn't have even considered the alternatives you did consider, but I think it's because of different backgrounds (I don't know Perl nor RVSiteBuilder and Php alone is too low level indeed). I think personally I would have gone with Django/Python, RoR/Ruby or I would have even tried CPPCMS/C++, but all these solutions imply a development that I guess you didn't have the time for so as I said I can understand going with Wordpress. Even if I think it might be problematic on the long term/evolution of the tool. All this is side comment of course, sorry if it don't help.
- the library list by category is empty for me (I see a page with header and all the theme but no content);
I added the "About this website" to explain the above. It has also a place for comments and discussion. My intent was that this be a place for gathering this type of feed back.
I am not sure I understand exactly what you mean here: Do you mean that I should report these kinds of comments on the "About" page? It's a bit "hidden" but ok if I understood correctly ok I'll do that next time.
- if I click on a library name in the alphabetical library list, I end up in a "Library Submission" page which have all the fields pre-filled with the library information but still modifiable. It is not clear to me if this is a voluntary hack to display these info without having to implement another page or if it is just a bug and it should have been another page. In any way; the "Library Submission" title and the writable fields makes it seems buggy.
It's a deliberate choice to reuse code and forms. The form is updateable by the author and read only for everyone else. This saved considerable code and I would be loath to change it. But I'm willing to entertain suggestions to make the intent more obvious and make it seem less buggy.
Ok then my suggestion to fix the perception with minimal efforts would be: when the reader is not the author (read-only access to the page) 1. lock all fields in read-only mode (so that it's visible/clear and people can't write into them at all); 2. remove the "Library Submission" title or replace it by something else ("Candidate Library?") (for clarity that this page is not intended to be a library submission form for the reader to fill) I think these changes should be enough, but I'm not sure if it's easy to implement from your current code. If it was just some javascript I could have helped but I think it's better done on the server side (where the access rights is known).
- having the front page text stretch all the width of the screen makes it very hard to read, both because it makes too long lines and because there is no space between the left and right border and the text itself. This is against text ergonomic "rules" and I should point that even scientific studies seem to suggest that too long lines makes it hard to read.
This is my personal preference. Personally it drives me crazy to have he web pages not fit on browser window. This way I can just adjust the window to the size and shape I like and the text is (almost) layer out perfectly. Just in case, I don't believe that asking the user to change his window's size to read that particular website is reasonable.
By the way this problem is also apparent in a lot of Boost libraries documentation and I do still have a hard time with reading most boost doc because of this.
again - I love the way the boost documentation adjusts to the current window size. I think ALL web pages should work this way. I just don't see anyway to reconcile these points of view.
I don't see a way either and therefore I will not argue more on this, it's not useful a the moment.
In any way, thanks for the hard work; I know it's not easy to setup this kind of tool correctly.
LOL - I'm going to ignore the implication that it's currently setup incorrectly.
I am very sorry, I might have badly formulated my sentence: it was not my intent at all to imply that it's incorrectly implemented or anything close, I just meant that it's always hard to make such tool, whatever that means, in particular when you have limited resources. I wanted to exress my gratitude and that I wish I could help in more productive ways (I've been in similar positions and it's not always pleasurable to have a list of critics instead of thanks for benevolent work).
Klaim - Joël Lamotte wrote
On Wed, Jun 18, 2014 at 5:29 PM, Robert Ramey <
ramey@
> wrote:
- the library list by category is empty for me (I see a page with header and all the theme but no content);
It's not a mistake - its a stub. I haven't done it yet. It didn't seem urgent since there are only 6 libraries submitted so far. And it's a somewhat painful exercise.
- if I click on a library name in the alphabetical library list, I end up in a "Library Submission" page which have all the fields pre-filled with the library information but still modifiable. It is not clear to me if this is a voluntary hack to display these info without having to implement another page or if it is just a bug and it should have been another page. In any way; the "Library Submission" title and the writable fields makes it seems buggy.
Ok then my suggestion to fix the perception with minimal efforts would be: when the reader is not the author (read-only access to the page) 1. lock all fields in read-only mode (so that it's visible/clear and people can't write into them at all); 2. remove the "Library Submission" title or replace it by something else ("Candidate Library?") (for clarity that this page is not intended to be a library submission form for the reader to fill)
I took another look at this - and damn you're right. The library pages shouldn't be editable by anyone other than the submitter. Users can't do anything because they don't have a "submit" button. But clearly this is confusing. Thanks for pointing this out.
I think these changes should be enough, but I'm not sure if it's easy to implement from your current code. If it was just some javascript I could have helped but I think it's better done on the server side (where the access rights is known).
again thanks for pointing this stuff out. It's incredibly hard to see on your own.
again - I love the way the boost documentation adjusts to the current window size. I think ALL web pages should work this way. I just don't see anyway to reconcile these points of view.
I don't see a way either and therefore I will not argue more on this, it's not useful a the moment.
btw - up until very recently, I always had my display in "portrait" mode. I always found this easier for me as the format of everything is more like an A4 sheet of paper - and the lines don't get too long. This has strongly influenced my distaste for web page text which either stretch the whole distance across the screen or are truncated to some arbitrary width - which are all different. Now I have a giant screen and I usually set my browser to a "portrait" format which leaves either the right/left part of the screen free - which is what I'm used to. And this comment touches upon an more fundamental point. There are two ways of going about something like this. a) start a discussion and let everyone express their ideas. Debate these ideas and come to some consensus. Then convince someone to do the actual work. b) Just do it. Make sure there is a unifying consistent concept and try to sell the concept after the fact. As you can see, I chose b) above. Can you imagine what this process would have been like had I chosen a) above? Of course you can - we'd still be discussing it. Now we have something which implements a clear purpose (Automate the boost review process without changing it's fundamentals) in an expedient way. So we actually have something that a) represents a concrete proposal rather than a speculative abstraction. b) which is easier to talk about and dispute in a rational way. c) which can (hopefully) evolve into something that is really useful. Then there is the implementation. My criteria was to implement something complete enough to represent the concept with the minimal amount of effort. The result is that we actually have something we can use before the original idea becomes obsolete. So far - I regret nothing. Boost could learn from this. a C++/CMS would be a very interesting application - and of course a very large one if it's to compete with wordpress and others. But use of native code in this context would likely make a measurable contribution to lower global energy consumption. I would like to see someone (else) do this. Robert Ramey -- View this message in context: http://boost.2283326.n4.nabble.com/Boost-Library-Incubator-recommended-by-st... Sent from the Boost - Dev mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
participants (5)
-
Andrzej Horoszczak -
Beman Dawes -
Klaim - Joël Lamotte -
Rob Stewart -
Robert Ramey