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<title>An overview of Boost participation in
Google Summer of Code&trade; 2006</title>
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<h1>An overview of Boost participation in
Google Summer of Code&trade; 2006</h1>
<hr>
<p>
For the second consecutive year, Google has conducted its
<a href="http://code.google.com/soc/">Summer of Code&trade;</a> initiative,
a program by which student developers are sponsored for their contributions
within open source organizations willing to mentor the participants. The 2006
campaign has run between April and September, with active development work
taking place between May 23 and August 21.
</p>
<p>
Around mid April, when the program had just started, some Boost members began
considering the possibility to enter Summer of Code as a mentoring
organization. Despite the lack of time and the fact that most of us were
completely new to this initiative, Boost managed to successfully apply for
the program. As a result ten projects were selected and mentored, most of
which are expected to become full contributions to Boost in the near future.
</p>
<p>
We give here a summary report of this experience, along with a short analysis
of the main problems we found, so that we can work at solving them and do
better next year.
</p>
<h2>Contents</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="#how_the_program_works">How the program works</a>
<ul>
<li><a href="#2006_figures">2006 figures</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><a href="#boost_participation">Boost participation</a>
<ul>
<li><a href="#application_and_process_selection">Application and
process selection</a></li>
<li><a href="#accepted_projects">Accepted projects</a></li>
<li><a href="#development">Development</a></li>
<li><a href="#results">Results</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><a href="#analysis">Analysis</a>
<ul>
<li><a href="#boost_appeal">Boost appeal</a></li>
<li><a href="#opportunities_lost">Opportunities lost?</a></li>
<li><a href="#projects_startup">Projects startup</a></li>
<li><a href="#ongoing_development">Ongoing development</a></li>
<li><a href="#public_communication_issues">Public communication
issues</a></li>
<li><a href="#scope_of_projects">Scope of projects</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><a href="#suggestions_for_improvement">Suggestions for improvement</a>
<ul>
<li><a href="#preparation">Preparation</a></li>
<li><a href="#public_communication">Public communication</a></li>
<li><a href="#project_management">Project management</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><a href="#conclusions">Conclusions</a></li>
<li><a href="#acknowledgements">Acknowledgements</a></li>
</ul>
<h2><a name="how_the_program_works">How the program works</a></h2>
<p>
There are three types of participants in Google Summer of Code:
<ul>
<li>Google itself acts as the funding partner and conducts the overall
program.</li>
<li>The open source organizations accepted into the program must designate
people inside the organization who will act as project mentors.</li>
<li>Students submit their project ideas and, if selected, work in
collaboration with one of the mentoring organizations; upon successful
completion of the project, students receive the full stipend for the
program.</li>
</ul>
The program goes through the following stages:
<ul>
<li>Organization selection: those open source organizations willing to
enter Summer of Code submit an expression of interest to Google, along
with information Google uses for qualifying purposes. Selected organizations
are publicly announced and each organization is expected to provide a pool
of project ideas.</li>
<li>Student selection: students willing to participate submit one or more
project proposals, typically expanding on some of the ideas previously
provided by the mentoring organizations. A student can apply several times
and for different organizations, but ultimately can only be chosen for just
one project. These proposals are routed by Google to the appropriate
organizations, which must analyze them, rank them, and assign mentors to the
most promising applications. Based on the information provided by mentoring
organizations, Google issues the final list of accepted projects.</li>
<li>Development: Students, guided by their assigned mentors, are expected to
complete the projects in a period of three months. Google asks mentors for a
mid-program review upon which continuation of the project depends.</li>
<li>Final review: Once the development period is over, mentors are requested
to inform Google on the results of the project, and determine whether students
qualify to receive the full stipend.</li>
</ul>
</p>
<h3><a name="2006_figures">2006 figures</a></h3>
<p>
The 2006 campaign of Google Summer of Code took place between April 14 and
September 25. A total of 102 mentoring organizations participated. Of the 6,338
applications submitted by 3,044 students around the globe, 630 were finally
selected and funded. Google has spent more than US$3 million in student stipends
and compensations to the mentoring organizations.
</p>
<h2><a name="#boost_participation">Boost participation</a></h2>
<h3><a name="#application_and_process_selection">Application and
process selection</a></h3>
<p>
On April 14, the same day Google Summer of Code started, Julio M. Merino Vidal
(later to become one of the selected students) sent a message encouraging Boost
members to participate in this program as a mentoring organization. This call
sparked the interest of the community; although time was already short for doing
all the preparation labors, Boost moderators put rapidly themselves to work and
conducted the preliminary registration steps. In the meantime, a Wiki page was
grown with project ideas provided by Boost members, totalling more than twenty
proposals.
</p>
<p>
By the beginning of May Boost was officially accepted into the program and Boost
moderators set out to form a group of mentors, selected on an invitation basis.
As student selection is a delicate process, involving the assessment of individuals
on their technical skills, all subsequent discussions were conducted by the
selected mentors on a private mail list established for their collaboration.
</p>
<p>
We were not prepared for the avalanche of student applications that followed. On
day two after the application period was open, we had received three proposals;
next day it was 14, and within a week the count exceeded 50. By the end of the
application period the total number of proposals received was 174, which forced
us to go through a very intensive ranking process and recruit additional mentors.
Two rules were followed so as rationalize the process of selection among dozens
of different proposals:
<ul>
<li>Where there were competing applications for the same project idea, only
one were to be ultimately selected; so, no two projects with the same or very
similar goals were accepted.</li>
<li>Some of the applications built on a given Boost library (for instance, the
Boost Graph Library is a frequent target for the addition of algorithms.) We
limited the applications to a maximum of two per Boost library.</li>
</ul>
These rules have the combined effect of greatly reducing the number of eligible
applications while at the same time distributing the accepted projects evenly
across the space of ideas. Moreover, students with unique proposals, i.e. project
ideas not coming from the pool originally presented by Boost, are at a
competitive advantage.
</p>
<p>
The different proposals were classified according to its related technological
area so that each cluster could be handled by an appointed mentor with the
required expertise on the subject. Mentors submitted then "focus reports"
summarizing the applications under their responsibility; these reports served as
a first filter to help reduce the number of final applications to be evaluated
jointly. Along the process, students with the most promising proposals were asked
to refine their ideas and provide further information.
</p>
<p>
Although not enforced by the official rules, we agreed upon a one-to-one ratio
of mentors to students, which ultimately marked a hard limit on the maximum number
of eligible projects.
</p>
<h3><a name="accepted_projects">Accepted projects</a></h3>
<p>
Google accepted and funded the ten top-ranked projects endorsed by Boost. Of
these, eight projects are libraries or library components targeted for future
inclusion into Boost, while the remaining two consist of utility programs
heavily relying on Boost.
</p>
<blockquote>
<b>C++ Coroutine Library</b>
<br>
Giovanni Piero Deretta, mentored by Eric Niebler.
<br>
Library for the management through a modern C++ interface of OS-provided
coroutine facilities.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
<b>Concurrency Library</b>
<br>
Matthew Calabrese, mentored by David Abrahams.
<br>
STL-inspired generic framework for high-level specification and execution of
parallelizable algorithms.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
<b>TR1 Math Special Functions</b>
<br>
Xiaogang Zhang, mentored by John Maddock.
<br>
Implementation of the 23 special mathematical functions specified in C++
standard library extension proposal TR1.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
<b>The Boost.Process library</b>
<br>
Julio M. Merino Vidal, mentored by Jeff Garland.
<br>
Portable library for process launching and basic management.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
<b>Out-of-Core Graphs and Graph Algorithms</b>
<br>
St&eacute;phane Zampelli, mentored by Jeremy Siek.
<br>
Extension of the Boost Graph Library to deal with out-of-core structures,
i.e. data sets too large to be kept in main memory at once.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
<b>MISC (M)ulti (I)ndex (S)pecialized (C)ontainers</b>
<br>
Mat&iacute;as Capeletto, mentored by Joaqu&iacute;n M L&oacute;pez Mu&ntilde;oz.
<br>
Families of specialized containers internally based on Boost.MultiIndex.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
<b>Generic Tree Container</b>
<br>
Bernhard Reiter, mentored by Ren&eacute; Rivera.
<br>
Design and implementation of a family of STL-compatible tree containers.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
<b>Viewer utility for FSMs</b>
<br>
Ioana Tibuleac, mentored by Andreas Huber D&ouml;nni.
<br>
Utility program for the visualization of finite state machines (FSMs) specified
with Boost.Statechart.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
<b>Modular C++ preprocessor, using Boost.Spirit</b>
<br>
Hermanpreet 'Lally' Singh, mentored by Joel de Guzman.
<br>
Implementation with Boost.Spirit and Boost.Wave of a front-end translator
from Modular C++ (as specified in a proposal to add modules to C++ by Daveed
Vandevoorde) to standard C++.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
<b>Implementing a state of the art Mincut/Maxflow algorithm.</b>
<br>
Stephan Diederich, mentored by Douglas Gregor.
<br>
Implementation of a fast mincut/maxflow routine for the Boost Graph Library
based on a new algorithm devised by Vladimir Kolmogorov.
</blockquote>
<h3><a name="development">Development</a></h3>
<p>
Two main facilities were set up to assist students and mentors during the
development phase: a mailing list and a Trac/SVN project management system
with separate directories for each project. One of the students, Mat&iacute;as
Capeletto, out of personal initiative registered a Google Group aimed at giving
students with Boost a place for informal interaction and discussion of common
problems.
</p>
<p>
After the initial warm-up period, each student-mentor pair performed development
work mostly privately. The usage of the Boost mailing lists was scarce, and
only by the end of the program did some students publicly announced their results.
</p>
<h3><a name="results">Results</a></h3>
<p>
By the date the development period was officially closed, the status of the
different projects was as follows:
<ul>
<li>Seven projects were completed or nearly completed and the students are
expected to ask for a formal review within 2006 or early 2007. Four of these
projects necessitated a goal reorientation during development, basically
because the original plan was too ambitious for three months. Most of the
projects are still in active development during the months following the
Summer of Code program.</li>
<li>Two projects did not reach the planned goals, but nevertheless produced
useful material that could be expanded outside of the Summer of Code
program.</li>
<li>One project was abandoned shortly after the midterm review. The reasons
for the abandonment are unknown.</li>
</ul>
The results of all the projects can be consulted online at the dedicated
<a href="https://www.boost-consulting.com:8443/trac/soc/browser/boost/soc/2006">Trac
site</a>.
</p>
<h2><a name="analysis">Analysis</a></h2>
<p>
We examine the various stages of Boost participation in Summer of Code, with an
emphasis on discovering opportunities for improvement.
</p>
<h3><a name="boost_appeal">Boost appeal</a></h3>
<p>
In a mid project
<a href="http://code.google.com/soc/GSoC2006Statistics.pdf">presentation at OSCON
2006</a>, Chris DiBona from Google provided some data about the organizations
which received the most applications:
</p>
<p align="center">
<table cellspacing="0">
<tr>
<th align="left">Organization</th>
<th>No of applications</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>KDE</td>
<td align="center">244</td>
</tr>
<tr class="odd_tr">
<td>Ubuntu &amp; Bazaar</td>
<td align="center">236</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Python Software Foundation</td>
<td align="center">212</td>
</tr>
<tr class="odd_tr">
<td>GNOME</td>
<td align="center">199</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Apache Software Foundation</td>
<td align="center">190</td>
</tr>
<tr class="odd_tr">
<td><b>Boost</b></td>
<td align="center"><b>174</b></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Gaim</td>
<td align="center">152</td>
</tr>
<tr class="odd_tr">
<td>The GNU Project</td>
<td align="center">148</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Drupal</td>
<td align="center">146</td>
</tr>
</table>
</p>
<blockquote style="FONT-SIZE: 75%;">
The numbers shown here have been estimated from a chart included in the
presentation slides. This chart contains an additional column labeled "Google"
which actually accounts for the applications dismissed because of their low
quality.
</blockquote>
<p>
The fact that Boost is ranked the sixth most attractive organization out of a
total of 102 was entirely unexpected, especially considering the wide popularity
of the rest of top-rated organizations. There is a more or less implicit
consensus among Boost members that ours is a relatively niche project, known for
its quality standards by seasoned C++ practitioners, but with a limited penetration
among entry level programmers: maybe the figures above should make us reconsider
this assumption. A cursory examination of the applications submitted to Boost reveals
that most applicants were regular users of Boost: many cite the Boost status among
the C++ community as an appealing factor in order to apply.
</p>
<h3><a name="opportunities_lost">Opportunities lost?</a></h3>
<p>
If we look at the number of funded projects with respect to the applications received,
figures are not so favorable to Boost.</p>
<p align="center">
<table cellspacing="0">
<tr>
<th align="left">Organization</th>
<th>No of projects</th>
<th>Project/app ratio</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>KDE</td>
<td align="center">24</td>
<td align="center">9.8 %</td>
</tr>
<tr class="odd_tr">
<td>Ubuntu &amp; Bazaar</td>
<td align="center">22</td>
<td align="center">9.3 %</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Python Software Foundation</td>
<td align="center">23</td>
<td align="center">10.8 %</td>
</tr>
<tr class="odd_tr">
<td>GNOME</td>
<td align="center">19</td>
<td align="center">9.5 %</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Apache Software Foundation</td>
<td align="center">27</td>
<td align="center">14.2 %</td>
</tr>
<tr class="odd_tr">
<td><b>Boost</b></td>
<td align="center"><b>10</b></td>
<td align="center"><b>5.7 %</b></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Gaim</td>
<td align="center">8</td>
<td align="center">5.3 %</td>
</tr>
<tr class="odd_tr">
<td>The GNU Project</td>
<td align="center">10</td>
<td align="center">6.8 %</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Drupal</td>
<td align="center">14</td>
<td align="center">9.6 %</td>
</tr>
</table>
</p>
<p>
It turns out that the project/application ratio for almost any other organization
among the top nine is considerably higher than that of Boost. As it happens, Google
initially requested that organizations submitted the maximum number of projects they
felt they could cope with, and we got funding for exactly what we aimed for, so the
limiting factor lies entirely on Boost's side.
</p>
<h3><a name="projects_startup">Projects startup</a></h3>
<p>
Contributing to Boost relies on a fair number of guidelines and protocols for
coding, documentation, testing and maintenance. Many of the required tools are
exclusively used within Boost, and some of them are not trivial, like for instance
Boost.Build. Although the Boost web site contains information about all these tools
and procedures, this intelligence is scattered through unrelated pages and sometimes
is very hard to come by.
</p>
<p>
So, there is a good deal of expertise required to begin working at Boost. Some
students have reported on startup difficulties getting to know these details and
familiarizing themselves with the tools, most notably <code>bjam</code> and Quickbook. Each
student overcome the startup difficulties on their own or resorting to their
mentors (see the section on <a href="#public_communication_issues">public
communication issues</a>).
</p>
<h3><a name="ongoing_development">Ongoing development</a></h3>
<p>
Once students got past the startup stage, most projects advanced without serious
complications. In the majority of cases, it was realized at some point during
the development that there was no time to complete it. Some participants had to
redefine the goals in an effort to keep the project within schedule, while others
simply decided that they would continue working after the official deadline of
Summer of Code.
</p>
<p>
The information flow between each student and their mentor was usually reported
by both parties to be satisfactory. The projects suffering from lack of
communication have been precisely those yielding the poorest results. In general,
mentors have not felt overwhelmed by requests from their students, and even in a
couple of cases the projects were run practically unattendedly. This fact is
witness to the high competence of the students recruited into the program.
</p>
<p>
The degree of usage of the Trac/SVN system has varied. Some students did frequent
updates, while others have just used the repository to dump the final results for
the official submission to Google.
</p>
<h3><a name="public_communication_issues">Public communication
issues</a></h3>
<p>
Students and mentors had at their disposal three different forums for the public
interchange of information and support:
<ul>
<li>Boost public lists, especially the developers and users lists.</li>
<li>A dedicated mailing list reaching all students and mentors working at
Summer of Code in Boost.</li>
<li>A more casual Google Group, set up by one of the students, aimed at
providing the participants with a place for socializing and resolution of
common problems.</li>
</ul>
Despite this abundance of resources, there was an almost complete lack of group
communication among all the parties involved and between these and the larger
Boost community. Seemingly, students were satisfied to pursue their activities by
relying on support from their mentors alone. This circumstance has prevented
Boost members from enriching the initiative by offering their experience and
insight, and has possibly led students to the false impression that contributing
to Boost proceeds in a predictable linear path from requisites to completion of
the work. When asked about their not engaging in public communication, the students
gave vague justifications that can be classified into the following:
<ul>
<li>Doubts were deemed too technical or specific to be worth raising in
public.</li>
<li>A crave for perfectionism detracted students from asking or submitting work
in progress until they felt their material looked good enough.</li>
<li>Shyness: some students probably lacked previous experience communicating in
public, and most are not English native speakers, which could also be a
limiting factor.</li>
</ul>
Although students did not identify the following as a reason not to go public, it
is likely that many of them did not feel the need given the readily access to their
mentors they enjoyed. It is easy to grow used to such a dedicated source of support
and neglect resorting to other resources. Mentors should have encouraged their
students to pursue the public discussion of projects, which constitutes one of the
pillars of Boost renowned quality.
</p>
<h3><a name="scope_of_projects">Scope of projects</a></h3>
<p>
In hindsight, it has become apparent that most projects were too ambitious to be
completed within the three months of duration of the program, and even those that
were considered a success will need weeks or months of polishing up before the
material is ready for a formal review. In contrast with other organizations
participating in the Summer of Code program, Boost has as of this writing included
no results into its code base. No formal review for any project has been requested
yet, either.
</p>
<p>
These scope issues are very dependent on the particular type of project. We can
classify the Boost projects for Summer of Code as follows:
<ul>
<li>Full-fledged libraries,</li>
<li>additions to existing Boost libraries,</li>
<li>utilities and tool projects using Boost.</li>
</ul>
Of these, additions (like for instance the mincut/maxflow algorithm for BGL by
Stephan Diederich) are the most suitable for completion in a short period of time:
most of the preparation work is already done, and the student has clear guides as
to what coding and documentation standards to follow. Also, these projects need
not undergo a formal review, since it is the responsibility of the hosting library
author to review the code and include it within her discretion. Utility projects
seem also suitable for small timeframes, though most project proposals and requests
are naturally oriented to contributions of actual code to the Boost project.
</p>
<p>
As for those projects involving the design and realization of full-fledged
libraries, there is little hope that the goals and scope can be kept modest enough
for a three-month schedule. Boost candidate libraries developed by professional
authors usually take much longer than three months to be accepted; some libraries
have been evolving through several <i>years</i> before being included into Boost.
So, the best we can hope for if we are to support the realization of library projects
for Boost inside Summer of Code is that the results by the end of the program can
be evaluated to constitute a viable <i>potential</i> contribution to Boost. When this is
the case, it is crucial that the student commits to further working on the project
up to completion and formal review. Perhaps more important than getting libraries
coded is to engage new authors into a long-term relationship with the Boost project.
</p>
<h2><a name="suggestions_for_improvement">Suggestions for improvement</a></h2>
<p>
The following proposals aim to alleviate some of the problems we have identified
during the development of Summer of Code within Boost. These action points are
related only to the issues found in connection with Boost: we are not addressing
other areas of improvement associated to the Summer of Code program itself.
</p>
<h3><a name="preparation">Preparation</a></h3>
<p>
Much work can be done before the actual program begins. The following preparation
activities can already be launched:
</p>
<p>
<b>Create a pool of ideas for projects.</b> This action will provide valuable extra
time for evaluation and refining of ideas before the Summer of Code begins.
The experience has shown that those projects with more preparation work, especially
in the area of design, were ultimately more successful. The pool can also be used
to retain interesting ideas that arise at the mailing lists and very often are
not given proper attention and become abandoned.
</p>
<p>
<b>Create a student pool.</b> Prior involvement with Boost is clearly an advantage
both in the selection phase and later during project development. Those students
with a serious interest in participating in Summer of Code with Boost can enter
the pool and begin exploring ideas and interacting with the community well in
advance of the summer, so as to put themselves in a favorable position for the
selection. Advertisement for the student pool can be initiated in the beginning of
2007 through the usual channels (web site and mailing lists): additionally, Boost
members involved with the University can spread this information locally and help
raise the interest of students in their environment.
</p>
<p>
<b>Create a mentor pool.</b> Given the rush with which Boost entered the 2006
Summer of Code campaign, the invitation of mentors has to be done on an on-demand
basis as it became all too evident that the task was growing bigger and bigger.
It is important that the organization is better prepared next year so that a
number of people with the ability and will to participate as Boost mentors are
identified in advance.
</p>
<p>
<b>Prepare a startup package.</b> In order to facilitate the initial period of
getting familiarized with the various Boost guidelines, protocols and tools, it
would be extremely useful to prepare a compilation of startup material for
students. This package can consist of a single document gathering the currently
dispersed information, or go beyond this and provide some bundle of documentation
and pre-built tools, an approach that one of the students is currently working on.
</p>
<h3><a name="public_communication">Public communication</a></h3>
<p>
It is crucial that students get involved with the community as soon as possible
and grow to appreciate the advantages of public development with respect to
solitary coding.
</p>
<p>
<b>Mandate (bi)weekly reports.</b> These reports should be directed to the public
mailing lists so as to give all Boost members an opportunity to follow the work
in progress and contribute. Reporting has the extra benefit for students of
forcing them to reflect on their own work periodically and struggle with the
often difficult task of presenting their ideas to others.
</p>
<p>
<b>Conduct student-mentor exclusively through public channels.</b> This might be
too drastic a policy, as some matters need privacy, and depending on the amount
of information exchanged flooding problems may arise. Less severe variations
involve allowing for some private interchange at the mentors' discretion and
moving this kind of communication to a dedicated public mailing list different
from the general ones.
</p>
<h3><a name="project_management">Project management</a></h3>
<p>
The two most important issues to improve upon with respect to the management are:
<ul>
<li>Project scope must be kept under control,</li>
<li>The progress has to be publicly visible, so that problems of scope,
design and/or schedule can be more easily detected.</li>
</ul>
Some of the proposals in this section are not to be regarded as strict rules,
but rather as general guidelines to be kept in mind by students and encouraged
by mentors.
</p>
<p>
<b>Create a best practices document.</b> This document can serve as a guideline
for project management, an area in which Boost traditionally imposes no
requirements. Students might lack the expertise in this area that is usually
taken for granted in the traditional model where contributions to Boost are
made by professional programmers.
</p>
<p>
<b>Mandate a design phase.</b> Having a concrete design set up and clearly
described early in the project will help estimate the necessary effort for
completion of the work. This is also an opportunity for public discussion.
</p>
<p>
<b>Maintain code, docs and tests in parallel.</b> All too often, novice
programmers do the coding in one fell swoop and only then move to testing and
documenting their work. This is unacceptable by all current methodology
standards, and can result in serious underestimations of the time to
completion.
</p>
<p>
<b>Encourage the KISS principle.</b> It is much better to finish a simpler library
and then iteratively evolve it, once it has been exposed to public scrutiny and
usage.
</p>
<p>
<b>More Trac updates.</b> The repository should be viewed as an everyday work
tool, not only as the place into which to dump the final results. Updating often
leads to more visibility of the work by the mentor and the public in general.
</p>
<p>
<b>Informal reviews.</b> The typical Summer of Code Boost project will not be
completed by the official deadline, as have been discussed earlier. To somehow
officialize the work done within the Summer of Code proper, and also to allow
the students to reach some sort of psychological milestone, informal reviews can
be instituted where Boost members evaluate the work done at then end of Summer
of Code.
</p>
<p>
<b>Engage students.</b> This experience has shown that it is possible to guide
willing and bright students to the competence levels required for contributing
to Boost. The best possible outcome of Summer of Code campaigns are the
incorporation of new people into the circle of Boost active contributors. Strive
to make the students commit to Boost.
</p>
<h2><a name="conclusions">Conclusions</a></h2>
<p>
Despite the lack of previous experience in Boost, our participation in Google
Summer of Code has been extremely fruitful: much useful material has been produced,
and, perhaps more importantly, some of the students are likely to commit on a
long-term basis and grow to be regular Boost contributors. Traditionally, becoming
a productive Boost author has a very high entry barrier due to the extreme quality
standards, lack of public support and the very specific culture of the project.
The appeal of Summer of Code itself and the possibility of being gently mentored
into the world of Boost have most likely been key factors in lowering this entry
barrier.
</p>
<p>
The process has not been without some difficulties, either, as it was expected of
a newcomer organization as Boost. We have tried to identify in this paper the
areas of improvement and suggest specific actions so that the upcoming Google
Summer of Code 2007 can be an even more rewarding experience.
</p>
<h2><a name="acknowledgements">Acknowledgements</a></h2>
<p>
This paper couldn't have been written without the numerous reports and contributions
kindly provided by Boost students and mentors: Many thanks to all the participants
for sharing their experiences with me. Thank you also to the people at Google who
have promoted and conducted the Summer of Code initiative.
</p>
<hr>
<p>Revised October 17th 2006</p>
<p>&copy; Copyright 2006 Joaqu&iacute;n M L&oacute;pez Mu&ntilde;oz.
Distributed under the Boost Software
License, Version 1.0. (See accompanying file <a href="../LICENSE_1_0.txt">
LICENSE_1_0.txt</a> or copy at <a href="http://www.boost.org/LICENSE_1_0.txt">
http://www.boost.org/LICENSE_1_0.txt</a>)
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<h1>Boost Formal Review Process</h1>
<div class="admonition-note admonition">
<p class="first admonition-title">Before Requesting a Formal Review</p>
<p class="last"><b>Read and follow the Boost <a href=
"submission_process.htm">submission process</a>.</b>&nbsp; There are at
least four steps a library author must take before a formal review is
requested.</p>
</div>
<p><a href="#Introduction">Introduction</a><br>
<a href="#Comments">What to include in Review Comments</a><br>
<a href="#Results">Results</a><br>
<a href="#Review_Manager">Notes for Review Managers</a><br>
<a href="#Submitters">Notes for Library Submitters</a><br>
<a href="#Wizard">Review Wizard</a><br>
<a href="#Fast-Track">Fast Track Reviews</a></p>
<h2><a name="Introduction" id="Introduction">Introduction</a></h2>
<p>Proposed libraries are accepted into Boost only after undergoing a
formal review, where Boost mailing list members comment on their evaluation
of the library.</p>
<p>The final "accept" or "reject" decision is made by the <a href=
"#Review_Manager">Review Manager</a>, based on the review comments received
from boost mailing list members.</p>
<p>Boost mailing list members are encouraged to submit Formal Review
comments:</p>
<blockquote>
<ul>
<li>Publicly on the mailing list.</li>
<li>Privately to the Review Manager.</li>
</ul>
</blockquote>
<p>Private comments to a library submitter may be helpful to her or him,
but won't help the Review Manager reach a decision, so the other forms are
preferred.</p>
<h2>What to include in Review <a name="Comments" id=
"Comments">Comments</a></h2>
<p>Your comments may be brief or lengthy, but basically the Review Manager
needs your evaluation of the library.&nbsp; If you identify problems along
the way, please note if they are minor, serious, or showstoppers.</p>
<p>The goal of a Boost library review is to improve the library through
constructive criticism, and at the end a decision must be made: is the
library good enough at this point to accept into Boost? If not, we hope to
have provided enough constructive criticism for it to be improved and
accepted at a later time. The Serialization library is a good example of how
constructive criticism resulted in revisions resulting in an excellent
library that was accepted in its second review.</p>
<p>Here are some questions you might want to answer in your review:</p>
<ul>
<li>What is your evaluation of the design?<br></li>
<li>What is your evaluation of the implementation?<br></li>
<li>What is your evaluation of the documentation?<br></li>
<li>What is your evaluation of the potential usefulness of the
library?<br></li>
<li>Did you try to use the library?&nbsp; With what compiler?&nbsp; Did
you have any problems?<br></li>
<li>How much effort did you put into your evaluation? A glance? A quick
reading? In-depth study?<br></li>
<li>Are you knowledgeable about the problem domain?</li>
</ul>
<p>And finally, every review should answer this question:<br></p>
<ul>
<li>Do you think the library should be accepted as a Boost library?&nbsp;
Be sure to say this explicitly so that your other comments don't obscure
your overall opinion.</li>
</ul>
<p>Many reviews include questions for library authors. Authors are
interested in defending their library against your criticisms; otherwise
they would not have brought their library up for review. If you don't get a
response to your question quickly, be patient; if it takes too long or you
don't get an answer you feel is sufficient, ask again or try to rephrase the
question. Do remember that English is not the native language for many
Boosters, and that can cause misunderstandings.<br>
<br>
E-mail is a poor communication medium, and even if messages rarely get lost
in transmission, they often get drowned in the deluge of other messages.
Don't assume that an unanswered message means you're being ignored. Given
constructively, criticism will be taken better and have more positive
effects, and you'll get the answers you want.</p>
<h2><a name="Results">Results</a></h2>
<p>At the conclusion of the comment period, the Review Manager will post a
message to the mailing list saying if the library has been accepted or
rejected.&nbsp; A rationale is also helpful, but its extent is up to the
Review Manager. If there are suggestions, or conditions that must be met
before final inclusion, they should be stated.</p>
<h2>Notes for <a name="Review_Manager" id="Review_Manager">Review
Manager</a>s</h2>
<p>Before a library can be scheduled for formal review, an active boost
member not connected with the library submission must volunteer to be the
"Review Manager" for the library.</p>
<p>The Review Manager:</p>
<ul>
<li>Checks the submission to make sure it really is complete enough to
warrant formal review.&nbsp; See the <a href="lib_guide.htm">Boost
Library Requirements and Guidelines</a>.&nbsp; If necessary, work with
the submitter to verify the code compiles and runs correctly on several
compilers and platforms.</li>
<li>Finalizes the schedule with the <a href="#Wizard">Review Wizard</a>
and the submitter .</li>
<li>Posts a notice of the review schedule on the regular <b><a href=
"mailto:boost@lists.boost.org">boost</a></b> mailing list, the
<b><a href="mailto:boost-users@lists.boost.org">boost-users</a></b>
mailing list, and the <b><a href=
"mailto:boost-announce@lists.boost.org">boost-announce</a></b> mailing
list.
<ul>
<li>The notice should include a brief description of the library and
what it does, to let readers know if the library is one they are
interested in reviewing.</li>
<li>If the library is known to fail with certain compilers, please
mention them in the review notice so reviewers with those compilers
won't waste time diagnosing known problems.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Inspects the Boost <a href="../libs/libraries.htm">library
catalogue</a> for libraries which may interact with the new submission.
These potential interactions should be pointed out in the review
announcement, and the author(s) of these libraries should be privately
notified and urged to participate in the review.</li>
<li>Urges people to do reviews if they aren't forthcoming.</li>
<li>Follows review discussions regarding the library, moderating or
answering questions as needed.</li>
<li>Asks the <a href="#Wizard">review wizard</a> for permission
to extend the review schedule if it appears that too few reviews will
be submitted during the review period.</li>
<li>Decides if there is consensus to accept the library, and if there
are any conditions attached.</li>
<li>Decides if there is consensus to accept the library, and if there are
any conditions attached.</li>
<li>Posts a notice of the <a href="#Results">review results</a> on the
regular <b><a href="mailto:boost@lists.boost.org">boost</a></b> mailing
list, the <b><a href=
"mailto:boost-users@lists.boost.org">boost-users</a></b> mailing list,
and the <b><a href=
"mailto:boost-announce@lists.boost.org">boost-announce</a></b> mailing
list.</li>
</ul>
<p>In other words, it is the Review Manager's responsibility to make sure
the review process works smoothly.</p>
<h2>Notes for Library <a name="Submitters" id=
"Submitters">Submitters</a></h2>
<p>See <a href="submission_process.htm">Submission Process</a> for a
description of the steps a library developer goes through to get a library
accepted by Boost.</p>
<p>A proposed library should remain stable during the review period; it
will just confuse and irritate reviewers if there are numerous
changes.&nbsp; It is, however, useful to upload fixes for serious bugs
right away, particularly those which prevent reviewers from fully
evaluating the library.&nbsp; Post a notice of such fixes on the mailing
list.</p>
<p>Library improvements suggested by reviewers should normally be held
until after the completion of review period.&nbsp; If the suggested changes
might affect reviewer's judgments,&nbsp;post a notice of the pending change
on the mailing list.</p>
<h2>Review <a name="Wizard" id="Wizard">Wizard</a></h2>
<p>The Review Wizard coordinates the formal review schedule:</p>
<ul>
<li>Maintains a list of review manager volunteers, in the form of a
queue, so that volunteers who least recently managed reviews become the
prime candidates for upcoming reviews.</li>
<li>When a formal review is requested for a library:</li>
<li style="list-style: none">&nbsp;
<ul>
<li>Assign a review manager and suggests a schedule, after checking
(via private email) availability of the volunteers at the top of
review manager queue.</li>
<li>Finalize the schedule, once the review manager verifies the
library is actually ready for review.</li>
<li>Resolve schedule slips or other issues with review managers and
submitters.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Monitors the general review process, and makes minor adjustments as
needed, or queries the list about possible major adjustments.</li>
</ul>
The role of Boost Review Wizard is currently played by John
Phillips (phillips at mps dot ohio-state dot edu) and Ronald
Garcia (garcia at cs dot indiana dot edu).
<li>Resolves questions from review managers and library submitters, who
sometimes want a third opinion on questions such as "Should we extend the
review period because ...?"</li>
<li>Monitors the general review process, and makes minor adjustments as
needed, or queries the list about possible major adjustments.</li>
</ul>The role of Boost Review Wizard is currently played by <a href=
"mailto:reportbase@yahoo.com">Tom Brinkman</a> and Ronald Garcia (garcia at
cs dot indiana dot edu).
<p>Revised
<!--webbot bot="Timestamp" s-type="EDITED" s-format="%d %B, %Y" startspan -->10 October, 2006<!--webbot bot="Timestamp" endspan i-checksum="38930" --></p>
<p>To qualify for fast track review:</p>
<ul>
<li>The component must be small.</li>
<li>The technique must be already in use in Boost libraries and the new
component provides a common implementation.</li>
<li>A full Boost-conformant implementation is available in the
sandbox.</li>
<li>The Review Wizard determines that the proposal qualifies for fast
track review.</li>
</ul>
<p>Procedure:</p>
<ul>
<li>The Boost Review Wizard posts a review announcement to the main Boost
developer's list. The review period will normally last for 5 days. No two
fast track reviews will run in parallel. Fast track reviews may run
during full reviews, though generally this is to be avoided.</li>
<li>After the review period ends, the submitter will post a review
summary containing proposed changes to the reviewed implementation.</li>
<li>The Review Wizard will accept or reject the proposed library and
proposed changes.</li>
<li>After applying the proposed changes, the component is checked into
CVS like any other library.<br>
&nbsp;</li>
</ul>
<hr>
<p>Revised
<!--webbot bot="Timestamp" s-type="EDITED" s-format="%d %B, %Y" startspan -->15
October, 2003<!--webbot bot="Timestamp" endspan i-checksum="38556" --></p>
<p>&copy; Copyright Beman Dawes 2000</p>
<p>Distributed under the Boost Software License, Version 1.0. (See
accompanying file <a href="../LICENSE_1_0.txt">LICENSE_1_0.txt</a> or copy
at <a href=
"http://www.boost.org/LICENSE_1_0.txt">http://www.boost.org/LICENSE_1_0.txt</a>)</p>
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