Am 29.08.2015 3:20 nachm. schrieb "Niall Douglas"

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On 28 Aug 2015 at 9:42, Hartmut Kaiser wrote:

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This is my (sadly very short) AFIO review.

I vote NO (to not accept) the library into Boost as I'm not able to tell whether the library is useful and fit for Boost.

I request that this review NOT be counted as part of the review decision for these reasons:

Niall, with all due respect. This is not your call. It's your review managers job to evaluate and weigh the votes. Messages like this are highly inappropriate.

On 29 Aug 2015 at 17:44, Andrey Semashev wrote:

I'll add that some of Hartmut's points in his posts made perfect sense to me.

Many of Thomas' points made and make perfect sense to me as I had previously considered most, but not all, of his concerns. But then he had taken the time to study the code and the problem and I responded positively in kind.

Too bad that Niall is taking his posts personally and is unlikely to take them into account to improve the library.

I found no useful points whatsoever in anything Hartmut posted other than noisy clones of what Thomas had already said in an attempt, in my opinion, to "juice up" the uncertainty and doubt. Obviously you disagree which is your perrogative, but seeing as I have found and acknowledged value in every other review contributed, I would suggest that I am listening. Niall -- ned Productions Limited Consulting http://www.nedproductions.biz/ http://ie.linkedin.com/in/nialldouglas/

On 29 Aug 2015 at 9:14, Robert Ramey wrote:

I'm glad I'm not the review manager as he's going to have to spend serious time to summarize all this coherently.

Ahmed made the offer to review manage AFIO on the airport tarmac of Denver airport where we were all waiting for our carry on luggage to be unloaded after Aspen. It was sunny, but windy. When I reminded him of what it would involve, I believe he said he thought it would be "amusing". Niall -- ned Productions Limited Consulting http://www.nedproductions.biz/ http://ie.linkedin.com/in/nialldouglas/

Robert wrote:

I hope [Ahmed] can find enough time to [manage the review]. I'm sure that it's more than he thought he was signing up for.

In my view Ahmed's job is _potentially_ quite easy: I think Niall is a smart and big enough guy to realise that even if he applies a discount factor to those reviews that he thinks are overly-hostile due to a personality clash, the general consensus is still not strong enough to an "accept" at this time, and therefore a withdrawal is appropriate. He could come back with a plan - "here's what I am going to change, here's what I am going to keep the same" and hopefully get some immediate feedback. Maybe some will say "sorry, you not changing X is a showstopper" and Niall can choose whether he wants to pursue with the changes. If he wants to pursue, we re-review. Personally I like the library and would be minded to accept regardless of whether Niall chose to keep his "shared" style or switch to the "standard" style outlined by Thomas Heller (and apologies if I am pushing anyone's buttons by calling it "standard"). That seems to be the only substantive design issue - the rest - the namespaces, the #if 0, parts of the documentation, the irrelevant v1, is basically bike-shedding stuff that could be changed after an accept. Finally whilst I'm up on the soapbox, I'd urge you, Niall, to just be a bit more careful with how you come across sometimes. What I view as enthusiasm for code and love for talking about code and coding, does seems to comes across less well with others. E.g. are you offending others by appearing to speak for them or implicitly denigrating their efforts by highlighting your own? [I am sure this sounds like you are having your hard work such as the "best practices handbook" thrown back in your face, but honestly I am only trying to improve the environment in which any further review might take place] Nice job with AFIO! Pete

On 29 Aug 2015 at 23:24, Pete Bartlett wrote:

Robert wrote:

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I hope [Ahmed] can find enough time to [manage the review]. I'm sure that it's more than he thought he was signing up for.

In my view Ahmed's job is _potentially_ quite easy:

There are about five main topics of debate by my count. I think a compromise or consensus is approaching in each, and that should make it easier to summarise.

I think Niall is a smart and big enough guy to realise that even if he applies a discount factor to those reviews that he thinks are overly-hostile due to a personality clash, the general consensus is still not strong enough to an "accept" at this time, and therefore a withdrawal is appropriate. He could come back with a plan - "here's what I am going to change, here's what I am going to keep the same" and hopefully get some immediate feedback. Maybe some will say "sorry, you not changing X is a showstopper" and Niall can choose whether he wants to pursue with the changes. If he wants to pursue, we re-review.

Exactly what I envisioned. The review to date has been very useful, and is exactly what I needed at this stage.

Personally I like the library and would be minded to accept regardless of whether Niall chose to keep his "shared" style or switch to the "standard" style outlined by Thomas Heller (and apologies if I am pushing anyone's buttons by calling it "standard"). That seems to be the only substantive design issue - the rest - the namespaces, the #if 0, parts of the documentation, the irrelevant v1, is basically bike-shedding stuff that could be changed after an accept.

I absolutely agree. And I think we may be approaching a compromise in the Heller thread, and even that alone is but a few hours of work to implement. To date assuming we reach resolutions as they currently appear to be heading, I count less than 40 hours of work needed to repair anything code related that has been raised in this review so far. The only real showstopper is the documentation, and I suspect another 40 hours would fix 80% of the most reported problems. That's just a few months of low hanging fruit to pick. It's less than I expected.

Finally whilst I'm up on the soapbox, I'd urge you, Niall, to just be a bit more careful with how you come across sometimes. What I view as enthusiasm for code and love for talking about code and coding, does seems to comes across less well with others. E.g. are you offending others by appearing to speak for them or implicitly denigrating their efforts by highlighting your own? [I am sure this sounds like you are having your hard work such as the "best practices handbook" thrown back in your face, but honestly I am only trying to improve the environment in which any further review might take place]

I do take exception with negativity for negativity's sake true. I also believe that collectively acting as if developing Boost libraries is effortless and does not involve major sacrifices is the Ayn Rand-ian hero taken too far. If you start from gratitude when criticising, you'll get nothing but positivity in return from me. All this said, I recognise I have been unusually tetchy since February this year when this uber work pace began, and I acknowledge I could have behaved a lot better on many occasions, particularly with regard to unenforced poor judgement. The good news is in just three weeks from now this burst of work is over, and I will be returning to my standard 50 hour week for the foreseeable future which includes most of 2016. I already have a fitness and physiotherapy schedule planned for as soon as I return from CppCon as I have lost a lot of fitness and gained a fair bit of weight since Feburary. I'm very much looking forward to that.

Nice job with AFIO!

Thanks Pete. Much appreciated. Niall -- ned Productions Limited Consulting http://www.nedproductions.biz/ http://ie.linkedin.com/in/nialldouglas/

On 17:44 Sat 29 Aug , Andrey Semashev wrote:

Too bad that Niall is taking his posts personally and is unlikely to take them into account to improve the library.

+1. My personal experience: I had some of my codes shot down by others, rewrote them, sometimes had them shot down again. Even colleagues I consider personal friends will challenge my design decisions. And it's always been for the better. And if critique feels like trolling, it's perhaps because my message wasn't understood. If an expert, or many, misunderstand me, it's likely that my message wasn't clear. That's a lesson that can also be learned from this review. Cheers -Andreas -- ========================================================== Andreas Schäfer HPC and Grid Computing Department of Computer Science 3 Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, Germany +49 9131 85-27910 PGP/GPG key via keyserver http://www.libgeodecomp.org ========================================================== (\___/) (+'.'+) (")_(") This is Bunny. Copy and paste Bunny into your signature to help him gain world domination!

On 29 Aug 2015 at 10:02, Glen Fernandes wrote:

As someone who has been following the AFIO review, I have to say, this is the one instance where I was surprised by your attitude. I expected you to reply to Harmut's e-mails, and not ignore them. You've no doubt had to defend at least one thesis in your lifetime before a committee.

Indeed.

Even if you think a member of that committee is unjustly attacking points in your work, you hold your head up high, respond, and let it not get personal.

I believe I have done well on this, and with some difficulty given the never ending uncertainty and doubt spread by him throughout this review.

By not doing that and by your assertions in your mail above it appears to everyone that you're the one who has chosen to make things personal...

I wrote the original form of that response last night and decided to sleep on it. I rewrote it this morning into as factual as form as I could make it. Do feel free to review every post he has made regarding this review, and decide for yourself if my analysis of his behaviour is accurate. That is all I asked for. For the record, I requested that the moderators intervene regarding his behaviour early on in this review as I felt no good was going to come of it. They declined to do so. We are now where I feared we would end up unfortunately, but what other choice was I left? I don't like bullies, and I am going to call them on their behaviour if nobody else will. Niall -- ned Productions Limited Consulting http://www.nedproductions.biz/ http://ie.linkedin.com/in/nialldouglas/

On 29 Aug 2015 at 12:11, Agustín K-ballo Bergé wrote:

On 8/29/2015 11:48 AM, Niall Douglas wrote:

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For the record, I requested that the moderators intervene regarding his behaviour early on in this review as I felt no good was going to come of it. They declined to do so.

This *sounds* deeply concerning. Rather than making assumptions, I would appreciate if you could be a bit more concrete on what you mean by it. If that request took part in email form, perhaps even give us a link to the thread?

I simply forwarded his first two emails with a request that an intervention be made. I don't know what came of it - they may well have intervened and not told me. All I know is he kept coming at me despite my best attempts to ignore him. When he then submitted what I would consider a fake review which would have to be counted in AFIO's acceptance or rejection, I felt I was left no choice but to act in my defense as otherwise my library could be rejected for inappropriate reasons. (For the record, I can see given the reviews to date why it might be rejected anyway, but that's not the point here. If it came down to say a score of 3 in favour and 3 against and his review tipped the scales to 4 against, that would be a big problem). Niall -- ned Productions Limited Consulting http://www.nedproductions.biz/ http://ie.linkedin.com/in/nialldouglas/

On 8/29/2015 12:27 PM, Niall Douglas wrote:

On 29 Aug 2015 at 12:11, Agustín K-ballo Bergé wrote:

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On 8/29/2015 11:48 AM, Niall Douglas wrote:

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For the record, I requested that the moderators intervene regarding his behaviour early on in this review as I felt no good was going to come of it. They declined to do so.

This *sounds* deeply concerning. Rather than making assumptions, I would appreciate if you could be a bit more concrete on what you mean by it. If that request took part in email form, perhaps even give us a link to the thread?

I simply forwarded his first two emails with a request that an intervention be made.

Thanks. Are those two emails these: http://lists.boost.org/Archives/boost/2015/08/224776.php http://lists.boost.org/Archives/boost/2015/08/224782.php

When he then submitted what I would consider a fake review which would have to be counted in AFIO's acceptance or rejection, I felt I was left no choice but to act in my defense as otherwise my library could be rejected for inappropriate reasons.

That's not how the Boost review process works. Votes aren't counted, they are weighted by a criteria of choice of the review manager.

(For the record, I can see given the reviews to date why it might be rejected anyway, but that's not the point here. If it came down to say a score of 3 in favour and 3 against and his review tipped the scales to 4 against, that would be a big problem).

Again, that's not how the Boost review process works. Regards, -- Agustín K-ballo Bergé.- http://talesofcpp.fusionfenix.com

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This *sounds* deeply concerning. Rather than making assumptions, I would appreciate if you could be a bit more concrete on what you mean by it. If that request took part in email form, perhaps even give us a link to the thread? I simply forwarded his first two emails with a request that an intervention be made. I don't know what came of it - they may well have intervened and not told me. All I know is he kept coming at me despite my best attempts to ignore him. When he then submitted what I would consider a fake review which would have to be counted in AFIO's acceptance or rejection, I felt I was left no choice but to act in my defense as otherwise my library could be rejected for inappropriate reasons.

Hmmm, must have got lost in the post/noise, as I didn't see that request. In any case having reviewed Hartmut's responses, while there was one intemperate comment, by and large all the reviewers (Hartmut included) have made many good points. I sense there's a good deal of misunderstanding / miscommunication going on which is leading to frustration on all sides, so please folks, lets keep it civilized, so we can reach a considered conclusion to the review. Temporarily doffing moderator hat yours, John.