Re: Fwd: Re: Proposing statsort for Boost.Sort

Thanks Francisco,

You inspired me to engage with and respond thoughtfully to Peter.
Thank you for that!

I graduated Computer Science in 1994.
I did some lecturing later, those indeed were the days.
Mentoring is indeed something worth some investment.

- Nigel

On Thu, May 21, 2026 at 7:16 PM Francisco José Tapia via Boost <
[email protected]> wrote:

> ---------- Forwarded message ---------
> De: Nigel Stewart <[email protected]>
> Date: mié, 20 may 2026 a las 13:14
> Subject: Re: [boost] Re: Proposing statsort for Boost.Sort
> To: Francisco José Tapia <[email protected]>
>
>
> Francisco,
>
> Thank you so much for saying what needed to be said, and diplomatically.
>
> More interesting as a research result perhaps, than for real-world
> production use.
> At least so far.
>
> - Nigel
>
> On Wed, May 20, 2026 at 6:45 PM Francisco José Tapia via Boost
> <[email protected]> wrote:
> >
> > Hello,
> >
> > maybe I didn’t explain myself clearly about how the library works.
> >
> > Once you add an algorithm to the library, you can’t remove it later, even
> > if it’s surpassed by newer algorithms, because there are software
> programs
> > and companies that are using it.
>
>
> Hello,
>
> Thank you Nigel for your message.
>
> Behind my words there is a very clear idea and intention. The results of
> Peter's algorithm are not good enough to be included in the library.
> However, his work has my full respect and consideration.
>
> Doing something new, breaking new ground where no one has gone before,
> without knowing clearly whether it leads anywhere, is hard work and, on
> many occasions, emotionally exhausting. When you are in that situation,
> even if the result is not what was expected, it is very rewarding to have
> your effort recognised and valued. That is talent in its purest form.
>
> If you take the engineers from the best companies in the world and ask them
> whether they have done something new, something that has never been done
> before — whether successful or not — I assure you that very few would
> remain. That is the kind of talent that is so often talked about and so
> little understood. Meaningful talent, not nominal talent, nor talent by
> position or education.
>
> At Boost we are a club of geeks, although our manners disguise it and we
> may come across as conventional people. We have many people whom I
> sincerely admire for their talent, their vision and their work, and I can
> assure you that my admiration is not given lightly.
>
> We — companies, the world — need people who, like us, like Peter, blaze a
> trail.
>
> The important thing is to keep moving forward. Peter did not succeed on the
> first attempt; perhaps on the second, something might emerge from his mind
> that leaves us astonished, and it will be a pleasure to welcome him and
> other people with new ideas.
>
> Looking at him, I see myself, when I joined Boost and proposed a library
> for creating concurrent sets, multisets, maps and multimaps, allowing
> multiple threads to work on them concurrently in a safe manner. It was not
> well received, I suppose due to my clumsiness in presenting it. I ended up
> in the Sort library, with sorting algorithms that I developed for that
> library.
>
> That is why Peter and people like him matter to me, because they are the
> hope. For that very reason I am firm in my ideas, but I try to be careful,
> kind, and to acknowledge the value of that effort.
>
> What needs to be done and how to do it I have learned over my more than 30
> years of teaching Computer Science. That is all.
>
> Yours sincerely,
>
> Francisco Tapia
>
> [email protected]
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