From: Rush Manbert (rush_at_[hidden])
Date: 2006-02-01 12:41:59
I haven't had time to read all the responses to this, so I apologize if
I have duplicated someone else's reply.
It would be good to know what the experienced users consider to be the
"everyday" or "basic" parts of Boost. The safe casts come to mind. I
guess what I'm thinking of is something along the lines of "even if you
use nothing else from this library collection, the following minimum set
will help you write safer C++ code."
I suspect that many of us first start using Boost because we're trying
to solve some specific problem. (I was looking for a platform-neutral
filesystem library.) We find the library we need and we use it. Then we
have another problem to solve, so we find the library that helps there.
Then one day we have the time to read through all of the library
descriptions and we find things that we want to use, and we realize that
we should go through all of the code we have written since we started
using Boost, and replace error prone things with better Boost things.
But by then we don't have time/our code has worked reliably for quite a
while/something else stops us, and we can't really do that. It would
have been nice to have read about those useful, basic things in the
beginning.
Other than that, the only thing you might add are testimonials on the
home page. Everything I have used (and it's a whole lot more than the
filesystem library by now) just works. My experience with other open
source code has not been so seamless and easy, so I really appreciate
this about Boost, and I thank all those who have contributed to it.
- Rush