boost and google search

[Edward Rankin]

Hi,

I am sure it is pretty common for users of boost to use google to search
for documentation/tutorials on their favorite library in boost. I have
found that the top hits are typically not the latest documents. For example
I just searched for boost,foreach and a documentation from 1.35 was the
first hit. It would be great if there is a way to tell google to update
their links to the latest version. Anyone knows whether this is possible,
and how to make it happen?

This problem probably applies to any search engine but I can only comment
on google search.

Thanks,

Edward

_______________________________________________
Unsubscribe & other changes: http://lists.boost.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/boost

[Sylvester-Bradley, Gareth]

> I am sure it is pretty common for users of boost to use google to
search
> for documentation/tutorials on their favorite library in boost.

Yes.

Maybe there's a reasonable solution within Boost's control. I wonder if
it's possible to "automatically" put a banner near the top of all
documentation pages for previous releases, that warns the reader they
are not looking at the current release, preferably with a link to the
likely location of the current page under /doc/libs/release/... rather
than e.g. /doc/libs/1_34_1/...


Best regards,
Gareth







************************************************************************
The information contained in this message or any of its attachments may be confidential and is intended for the exclusive use of the addressee(s).  Any disclosure, reproduction, distribution or other dissemination or use of this communication is strictly prohibited without the express permission of the sender.  The views expressed in this email are those of the individual and not necessarily those of Sony or Sony affiliated companies.  Sony email is for business use only.

This email and any response may be monitored by Sony to be in compliance with Sony's global policies and standards



_______________________________________________
Unsubscribe & other changes: http://lists.boost.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/boost

[Rhys Ulerich-2]

>> I am sure it is pretty common for users of boost to use google
>> to search for documentation/tutorials on their favorite library in boost.

> Maybe there's a reasonable solution within Boost's control. I wonder if
> it's possible to "automatically" put a banner near the top of all
> documentation pages for previous releases, that warns the reader they
> are not looking at the current release, preferably with a link to the
> likely location of the current page under /doc/libs/release/... rather
> than e.g. /doc/libs/1_34_1/...

+1

Possible added benefit that the link to the current release might
"upvote" the current release within Google's tangled machinations.

- Rhys

_______________________________________________
Unsubscribe & other changes: http://lists.boost.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/boost

[Tobias Loew]

Hi,

I just switched from boost version 1.47 to 1.48 and now I've got the effect that my compiler (msvc 2008) generates the wrong (i.e. non-const) assignment operator in the following example:

///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
struct copy_test
{
public:
//#define USER_ASSIGN
#ifdef USER_ASSIGN
    copy_test & operator = (const copy_test & other)
    {
        map = other.map;
        return *this;
    }
#endif
    boost::unordered_map<std::wstring,std::wstring> map;
};

void foo()
{
    copy_test a,b;
    const copy_test c;
    a=b;
    a=c;        // error if USER_ASSIGN is not defined
}

////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

I think the reason is use of BOOST_COPY_ASSIGN_REF in unordered_map.hpp:148, as it expands the assignment operator to

unordered_map& operator=(const ::boost::rv<unordered_map>& x)

I think the same problems arise on other compilers without rv-references and containers that use BOOST_COPY_ASSIGN_REF.

regards

Tobias


_______________________________________________
Unsubscribe & other changes: http://lists.boost.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/boost

[Nathan Ridge]

> I am sure it is pretty common for users of boost to use google to search
> for documentation/tutorials on their favorite library in boost. I have
> found that the top hits are typically not the latest documents. For example
> I just searched for boost,foreach and a documentation from 1.35 was the
> first hit. It would be great if there is a way to tell google to update
> their links to the latest version. Anyone knows whether this is possible,
> and how to make it happen?
>
> This problem probably applies to any search engine but I can only comment
> on google search.

I have a related gripe: suppose I search google for "boost fusion". The first
result is:

Chapter 1. Fusion 2.1 - Boost 1.48.0
www.boost.org/doc/libs/release/libs/fusion/

So far, so good! But when I click on it, the address in my address bar is:

http://www.boost.org/doc/libs/1_48_0/libs/fusion/doc/html/index.html

When I then navigate to some page in the documentation, and copy the
link to post it somewhere (perhaps in a stackoverflow answer or a forum
post), the link is to the 1.48 docs, not the latest docs. When someone then
looks at the answer/post two years later and clicks on the link, they are
looking at a very outdated Boost version!

I think it would be better if it was set up so that when you follow a link
like www.boost.org/doc/libs/release/libs/fusion/, the address in your address
bar remains www.boost.org/doc/libs/release/libs/fusion/, not
http://www.boost.org/doc/libs/1_48_0/libs/fusion/doc/html/index.html, and
therefore the link is always pointing to the latest version. My understanding
is that this is not difficult to do.

If you happen to want a link specifically to 1.48 docs, you can still get it
by following a "1_48" link (e.g. from the Boost -> Libraries -> 1.48 page)
rather than a "release" link.

Regards,
Nate
     

_______________________________________________
Unsubscribe & other changes: http://lists.boost.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/boost

[Daniel James-3]

On 23 November 2011 16:39, Löw, Tobias (STEAG Energy Services GmbH)
<[hidden email]> wrote:
>
> I just switched from boost version 1.47 to 1.48 and now I've got the effect that my compiler (msvc 2008) generates the wrong (i.e. non-const) assignment operator in the following example:

This is due to Boost.Move's move emulation. I think I should have
given it a release or two to settle down before I made Boost.Unordered
movable. There's some discussion of this at:

https://svn.boost.org/trac/boost/ticket/6167

_______________________________________________
Unsubscribe & other changes: http://lists.boost.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/boost

[Dave Abrahams]

on Wed Nov 23 2011, "Sylvester-Bradley, Gareth" <Gareth.Sylvester-Bradley-AT-eu.sony.com> wrote:

>> I am sure it is pretty common for users of boost to use google to
> search
>> for documentation/tutorials on their favorite library in boost.
>
> Yes.
>
> Maybe there's a reasonable solution within Boost's control. I wonder if
> it's possible to "automatically" put a banner near the top of all
> documentation pages for previous releases, that warns the reader they
> are not looking at the current release, preferably with a link to the
> likely location of the current page under /doc/libs/release/... rather
> than e.g. /doc/libs/1_34_1/...

I *think* the problem is that /doc/libs/release/ redirects to
/doc/libs/<latest version number>/, whereas it probably should be the
other way around...  Or at least they could mirror one another but be
distinct pages, and all links on the site would go to /doc/libs/release/

--
Dave Abrahams
BoostPro Computing
http://www.boostpro.com


_______________________________________________
Unsubscribe & other changes: http://lists.boost.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/boost

[Rene Rivera-2]

On 11/23/2011 10:46 AM, Nathan Ridge wrote:

>
>> I am sure it is pretty common for users of boost to use google to search
>> for documentation/tutorials on their favorite library in boost. I have
>> found that the top hits are typically not the latest documents. For example
>> I just searched for boost,foreach and a documentation from 1.35 was the
>> first hit. It would be great if there is a way to tell google to update
>> their links to the latest version. Anyone knows whether this is possible,
>> and how to make it happen?
>>
>> This problem probably applies to any search engine but I can only comment
>> on google search.
>
> I have a related gripe: suppose I search google for "boost fusion". The first
> result is:
>
> Chapter 1. Fusion 2.1 - Boost 1.48.0
> www.boost.org/doc/libs/release/libs/fusion/
>
> So far, so good! But when I click on it, the address in my address bar is:
>
> http://www.boost.org/doc/libs/1_48_0/libs/fusion/doc/html/index.html
>
> When I then navigate to some page in the documentation, and copy the
> link to post it somewhere (perhaps in a stackoverflow answer or a forum
> post), the link is to the 1.48 docs, not the latest docs. When someone then
> looks at the answer/post two years later and clicks on the link, they are
> looking at a very outdated Boost version!

I would argue that in this case the behavior is actually good. Your SO
question and answer is dated and hence fits having a dated link.
Otherwise the link might point to non-existent documentation or totally
changed behavior on the referred page and hence invalidating your answer.


--
-- Grafik - Don't Assume Anything
-- Redshift Software, Inc. - http://redshift-software.com
-- rrivera/acm.org (msn) - grafik/redshift-software.com
-- 102708583/icq - grafikrobot/aim,yahoo,skype,efnet,gmail

_______________________________________________
Unsubscribe & other changes: http://lists.boost.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/boost

[Rene Rivera-2]

On 11/30/2011 8:13 AM, Rene Rivera wrote:

> On 11/23/2011 10:46 AM, Nathan Ridge wrote:
>>
>>> I am sure it is pretty common for users of boost to use google to search
>>> for documentation/tutorials on their favorite library in boost. I have
>>> found that the top hits are typically not the latest documents. For
>>> example
>>> I just searched for boost,foreach and a documentation from 1.35 was the
>>> first hit. It would be great if there is a way to tell google to update
>>> their links to the latest version. Anyone knows whether this is
>>> possible,
>>> and how to make it happen?
>>>
>>> This problem probably applies to any search engine but I can only
>>> comment
>>> on google search.
>>
>> I have a related gripe: suppose I search google for "boost fusion".
>> The first
>> result is:
>>
>> Chapter 1. Fusion 2.1 - Boost 1.48.0
>> www.boost.org/doc/libs/release/libs/fusion/
>>
>> So far, so good! But when I click on it, the address in my address bar
>> is:
>>
>> http://www.boost.org/doc/libs/1_48_0/libs/fusion/doc/html/index.html
>>
>> When I then navigate to some page in the documentation, and copy the
>> link to post it somewhere (perhaps in a stackoverflow answer or a forum
>> post), the link is to the 1.48 docs, not the latest docs. When someone
>> then
>> looks at the answer/post two years later and clicks on the link, they are
>> looking at a very outdated Boost version!
>
> I would argue that in this case the behavior is actually good. Your SO
> question and answer is dated and hence fits having a dated link.
> Otherwise the link might point to non-existent documentation or totally
> changed behavior on the referred page and hence invalidating your answer.

And now that I think about it further I would argue that having the
versioned link is the most pertinent use case. The release links are
only wanted in two cases: when returning search results, and when
specifically referring from other documentation. The first being the
subject of the OP.



--
-- Grafik - Don't Assume Anything
-- Redshift Software, Inc. - http://redshift-software.com
-- rrivera/acm.org (msn) - grafik/redshift-software.com
-- 102708583/icq - grafikrobot/aim,yahoo,skype,efnet,gmail

_______________________________________________
Unsubscribe & other changes: http://lists.boost.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/boost

[Philippe Vaucher]

>
> I would argue that in this case the behavior is actually good. Your SO
> question and answer is dated and hence fits having a dated link. Otherwise
> the link might point to non-existent documentation or totally changed
> behavior on the referred page and hence invalidating your answer.
>

While I agree with that,  what constantly happens to me is this:

I search for something, say "boost foreach". I click the outdated (say
1.35) link. I edit the url to replace 35 by 48 and finally I can see my
doc. Sometimes the doc changed and now the url with 1.48 is a 404. So I
curse and remove the library page part from the url and finally get my doc.

I know that I'm probably supposed to click the links on boost.org's
documentation section to reach the latest doc in the first place to avoid
myself that tedious dance I just described, but I think I'm far from the
only one searching the docs using google.

I think a lot of trouble would be avoided by simply adding links to /latest
on all the old docs, something like an header that'd say "This is the doc
for 1.35, click here for the latest boost documentation"... I reckon it's
the best we can do given the constraints. SO links would still be valid,
and it'd reduce my dance to two clicks. For urls that are 404 it'd just
redirect to the lib's index.

Philippe

_______________________________________________
Unsubscribe & other changes: http://lists.boost.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/boost

[Rene Rivera-2]

On Wed, Nov 30, 2011 at 8:21 AM, Rene Rivera <[hidden email]> wrote:

> On 11/30/2011 8:13 AM, Rene Rivera wrote:
>
>> On 11/23/2011 10:46 AM, Nathan Ridge wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>  I am sure it is pretty common for users of boost to use google to search
>>>> for documentation/tutorials on their favorite library in boost. I have
>>>> found that the top hits are typically not the latest documents. For
>>>> example
>>>> I just searched for boost,foreach and a documentation from 1.35 was the
>>>> first hit. It would be great if there is a way to tell google to update
>>>> their links to the latest version. Anyone knows whether this is
>>>> possible,
>>>> and how to make it happen?
>>>>
>>>> This problem probably applies to any search engine but I can only
>>>> comment
>>>> on google search.
>>>>
>>>
>>> I have a related gripe: suppose I search google for "boost fusion".
>>> The first
>>> result is:
>>>
>>> Chapter 1. Fusion 2.1 - Boost 1.48.0
>>> www.boost.org/doc/libs/**release/libs/fusion/<http://www.boost.org/doc/libs/release/libs/fusion/>
>>>
>>> So far, so good! But when I click on it, the address in my address bar
>>> is:
>>>
>>> http://www.boost.org/doc/libs/**1_48_0/libs/fusion/doc/html/**index.html<http://www.boost.org/doc/libs/1_48_0/libs/fusion/doc/html/index.html>
>>>
>>> When I then navigate to some page in the documentation, and copy the
>>> link to post it somewhere (perhaps in a stackoverflow answer or a forum
>>> post), the link is to the 1.48 docs, not the latest docs. When someone
>>> then
>>> looks at the answer/post two years later and clicks on the link, they are
>>> looking at a very outdated Boost version!
>>>
>>
>> I would argue that in this case the behavior is actually good. Your SO
>> question and answer is dated and hence fits having a dated link.
>> Otherwise the link might point to non-existent documentation or totally
>> changed behavior on the referred page and hence invalidating your answer.
>>
>
> And now that I think about it further I would argue that having the
> versioned link is the most pertinent use case. The release links are only
> wanted in two cases: when returning search results, and when specifically
> referring from other documentation. The first being the subject of the OP.

PS. Which suggest the most favorable solution as:

1. Change the release URLs to be temporary redirects (to make search
engines not discount the release URLs)
2. Block search crawlers from indexing the versioned trees of the docs.

Which should have the effect of searches returning the release links always
without loosing the redirects.


--
--
-- Grafik - Don't Assume Anything
-- Redshift Software, Inc. - http://redshift-software.com
-- rrivera/acm.org - grafik/redshift-software.com
-- 102708583/icq - grafikrobot/aim - grafikrobot/yahoo

_______________________________________________
Unsubscribe & other changes: http://lists.boost.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/boost

[Nathan Ridge]

> I think a lot of trouble would be avoided by simply adding links to /latest
> on all the old docs, something like an header that'd say "This is the doc
> for 1.35, click here for the latest boost documentation"... I reckon it's
> the best we can do given the constraints. SO links would still be valid,
> and it'd reduce my dance to two clicks. For urls that are 404 it'd just
> redirect to the lib's index.

+1
I think that would be helpful.

Regards,
Nate
     

_______________________________________________
Unsubscribe & other changes: http://lists.boost.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/boost

[Rene Rivera-2]

On 11/30/2011 10:42 AM, Nathan Ridge wrote:

>
>> I think a lot of trouble would be avoided by simply adding links to /latest
>> on all the old docs, something like an header that'd say "This is the doc
>> for 1.35, click here for the latest boost documentation"... I reckon it's
>> the best we can do given the constraints. SO links would still be valid,
>> and it'd reduce my dance to two clicks. For urls that are 404 it'd just
>> redirect to the lib's index.
>
> +1
> I think that would be helpful.

Unfortunately we can't do that as not all Boost libraries have the
common header to put such a link into.


--
-- Grafik - Don't Assume Anything
-- Redshift Software, Inc. - http://redshift-software.com
-- rrivera/acm.org (msn) - grafik/redshift-software.com
-- 102708583/icq - grafikrobot/aim,yahoo,skype,efnet,gmail

_______________________________________________
Unsubscribe & other changes: http://lists.boost.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/boost

[Philippe Vaucher]

>
> Unfortunately we can't do that as not all Boost libraries have the common
> header to put such a link into.
>

It'd not be too hard to write some script that does it for all html files
then?

Philippe

_______________________________________________
Unsubscribe & other changes: http://lists.boost.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/boost

[Dave Abrahams]

on Wed Nov 30 2011, Rene Rivera <grafikrobot-AT-gmail.com> wrote:

> On Wed, Nov 30, 2011 at 8:21 AM, Rene Rivera <[hidden email]> wrote:
>
>> On 11/30/2011 8:13 AM, Rene Rivera wrote:
>>
>>> I would argue that in this case the behavior is actually good. Your SO
>>> question and answer is dated and hence fits having a dated link.
>>> Otherwise the link might point to non-existent documentation or totally
>>> changed behavior on the referred page and hence invalidating your answer.
>>>
>>
>> And now that I think about it further I would argue that having the
>> versioned link is the most pertinent use case. The release links are only
>> wanted in two cases: when returning search results, and when specifically
>> referring from other documentation. The first being the subject of the OP.
>
> PS. Which suggest the most favorable solution as:
>
> 1. Change the release URLs to be temporary redirects (to make search
> engines not discount the release URLs)
> 2. Block search crawlers from indexing the versioned trees of the docs.
>
> Which should have the effect of searches returning the release links always
> without loosing the redirects.

I am not an expert in these things, but I do know the current situation
is kinda messed up and if you think you know what to do about it, please
be my guest!

--
Dave Abrahams
BoostPro Computing
http://www.boostpro.com


_______________________________________________
Unsubscribe & other changes: http://lists.boost.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/boost

[Dave Abrahams]

on Thu Dec 01 2011, Rene Rivera <grafikrobot-AT-gmail.com> wrote:

> On 11/30/2011 10:42 AM, Nathan Ridge wrote:
>>
>
>>> I think a lot of trouble would be avoided by simply adding links to /latest
>>> on all the old docs, something like an header that'd say "This is the doc
>>> for 1.35, click here for the latest boost documentation"... I reckon it's
>>> the best we can do given the constraints. SO links would still be valid,
>>> and it'd reduce my dance to two clicks. For urls that are 404 it'd just
>>> redirect to the lib's index.
>>
>> +1
>> I think that would be helpful.
>
> Unfortunately we can't do that as not all Boost libraries have the
> common header to put such a link into.

Those exceptions could either acquire said common header, or we could
just link to a page further up from where the current docs can be found.

--
Dave Abrahams
BoostPro Computing
http://www.boostpro.com


_______________________________________________
Unsubscribe & other changes: http://lists.boost.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/boost

[Daniel James-3]

On 18 December 2011 19:37, Dave Abrahams <[hidden email]> wrote:
>
> I am not an expert in these things, but I do know the current situation
> is kinda messed up and if you think you know what to do about it, please
> be my guest!

Due to some changes I made to the site the google results for phrases
such as 'boost foreach' have improved over the last few weeks. There's
more that can be done, but this isn't really something I want to spend
a lot of time on.

_______________________________________________
Unsubscribe & other changes: http://lists.boost.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/boost

[Daniel James-3]

On 18 December 2011 19:38, Dave Abrahams <[hidden email]> wrote:
>
> on Thu Dec 01 2011, Rene Rivera <grafikrobot-AT-gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Unfortunately we can't do that as not all Boost libraries have the
>> common header to put such a link into.
>
> Those exceptions could either acquire said common header, or we could
> just link to a page further up from where the current docs can be found.

Easier said than done. For example, frames and badly written html are
both problems. I just checked into the beta site an unfinished
implementation of 'latest version' links that I wrote a couple of
weeks ago. But it's pretty bad, there often isn't an equivalent page
in the latest version, and if there is, it could quite possibly be
documenting a completely different thing.

_______________________________________________
Unsubscribe & other changes: http://lists.boost.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/boost

[Rene Rivera-2]

On 12/18/2011 2:45 PM, Daniel James wrote:

> On 18 December 2011 19:37, Dave Abrahams<[hidden email]>  wrote:
>>
>> I am not an expert in these things, but I do know the current situation
>> is kinda messed up and if you think you know what to do about it, please
>> be my guest!
>
> Due to some changes I made to the site the google results for phrases
> such as 'boost foreach' have improved over the last few weeks. There's
> more that can be done, but this isn't really something I want to spend
> a lot of time on.

I've just put in the change for #1 that I mentioned (the redirect
codes). I'll see about crawling the old docs soon.



--
-- Grafik - Don't Assume Anything
-- Redshift Software, Inc. - http://redshift-software.com
-- rrivera/acm.org (msn) - grafik/redshift-software.com
-- 102708583/icq - grafikrobot/aim,yahoo,skype,efnet,gmail

_______________________________________________
Unsubscribe & other changes: http://lists.boost.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/boost

[Kai Schroeder-3]

I would like to add that using redirects, bookmarking of pages is very
difficult. I usually prefer to bookmark a link to the release version.
To do that I create a bookmark and then go to "manage bookmarks" and
manually replace the version number with the string "release" which is
a bit cumbersome. I would prefer to have release links which do not
redirect me somewhere else.

Best regards,
Kai


On 12/19/11, Rene Rivera <[hidden email]> wrote:

> On 12/18/2011 2:45 PM, Daniel James wrote:
>> On 18 December 2011 19:37, Dave Abrahams<[hidden email]>  wrote:
>>>
>>> I am not an expert in these things, but I do know the current situation
>>> is kinda messed up and if you think you know what to do about it, please
>>> be my guest!
>>
>> Due to some changes I made to the site the google results for phrases
>> such as 'boost foreach' have improved over the last few weeks. There's
>> more that can be done, but this isn't really something I want to spend
>> a lot of time on.
>
> I've just put in the change for #1 that I mentioned (the redirect
> codes). I'll see about crawling the old docs soon.
>
>
>
> --
> -- Grafik - Don't Assume Anything
> -- Redshift Software, Inc. - http://redshift-software.com
> -- rrivera/acm.org (msn) - grafik/redshift-software.com
> -- 102708583/icq - grafikrobot/aim,yahoo,skype,efnet,gmail
>
> _______________________________________________
> Unsubscribe & other changes:
> http://lists.boost.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/boost
>

_______________________________________________
Unsubscribe & other changes: http://lists.boost.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/boost