Boost Formal Review Process

Introduction
What to include in Review Comments
Results
Notes for Review Managers
Notes for Library Submitters
Review Wizard
Fast Track Reviews

Introduction

Proposed libraries are accepted into Boost only after undergoing a formal review, where Boost mailing list members comment on their evaluation of the library.

The final "accept" or "reject" decision is made by the Review Manager, based on the review comments received from boost mailing list members.

Boost mailing list members are encouraged to submit Formal Review comments:

Publicly on the mailing list.

Privately to the Review Manager.

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.

What to include in Review Comments

Your comments may be brief or lengthy, but basically the Review Manager needs your evaluation of the library. If you identify problems along the way, please note if they are minor, serious, or showstoppers.

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.

Here are some questions you might want to answer in your review:

What is your evaluation of the design?
What is your evaluation of the implementation?
What is your evaluation of the documentation?
What is your evaluation of the potential usefulness of the library?
Did you try to use the library? With what compiler? Did you have any problems?
How much effort did you put into your evaluation? A glance? A quick reading? In-depth study?
Are you knowledgeable about the problem domain?

And finally, every review should answer this question:

Do you think the library should be accepted as a Boost library? Be sure to say this explicitly so that your other comments don't obscure your overall opinion.

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.

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.

Results

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. 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.

Notes for Review Managers

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.

The Review Manager:

Checks the submission to make sure it really is complete enough to warrant formal review. See the Boost Library Requirements and Guidelines. If necessary, work with the submitter to verify the code compiles and runs correctly on several compilers and platforms.
Finalizes the schedule with the Review Wizard and the submitter .
Posts a notice of the review schedule on the regular boost mailing list, the boost-users mailing list, and the boost-announce mailing list.
- 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.
- 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.
Inspects the Boost library catalogue 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.
Urges people to do reviews if they aren't forthcoming.
Follows review discussions regarding the library, moderating or answering questions as needed.
Asks the review wizard for permission to extend the review schedule if it appears that too few reviews will be submitted during the review period.
Decides if there is consensus to accept the library, and if there are any conditions attached.
Posts a notice of the review results on the regular boost mailing list, the boost-users mailing list, and the boost-announce mailing list.

In other words, it is the Review Manager's responsibility to make sure the review process works smoothly.

Notes for Library Submitters

See Submission Process for a description of the steps a library developer goes through to get a library accepted by Boost.

A proposed library should remain stable during the review period; it will just confuse and irritate reviewers if there are numerous changes. It is, however, useful to upload fixes for serious bugs right away, particularly those which prevent reviewers from fully evaluating the library. Post a notice of such fixes on the mailing list.

Library improvements suggested by reviewers should normally be held until after the completion of review period. If the suggested changes might affect reviewer's judgments, post a notice of the pending change on the mailing list.

Review Wizard

The Review Wizard coordinates the formal review schedule:

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.
When a formal review is requested for a library:
- Assign a review manager and suggests a schedule, after checking (via private email) availability of the volunteers at the top of review manager queue.
- Finalize the schedule, once the review manager verifies the library is actually ready for review.
- Resolve schedule slips or other issues with review managers and submitters.
Maintains a schedule of both past and pending reviews, in the form of the Review Schedule web page.
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 ...?"
Monitors the general review process, and makes minor adjustments as needed, or queries the list about possible major adjustments.

The role of Boost Review Wizard is currently played by Tom Brinkman and Ronald Garcia (garcia at cs dot indiana dot edu).

Fast Track Reviews

To qualify for fast track review:

The component must be small.
The technique must be already in use in Boost libraries and the new component provides a common implementation.
A full Boost-conformant implementation is available in the sandbox.
The Review Wizard determines that the proposal qualifies for fast track review.

Procedure:

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.
After the review period ends, the submitter will post a review summary containing proposed changes to the reviewed implementation.
The Review Wizard will accept or reject the proposed library and proposed changes.
After applying the proposed changes, the component is checked into CVS like any other library.

Revised 10 October, 2006

Distributed under the Boost Software License, Version 1.0. (See accompanying file LICENSE_1_0.txt or copy at http://www.boost.org/LICENSE_1_0.txt)