Getting Help with Git and Modular Boost

If the Git and Modular Boost docs, and the references they link to, aren't helping you solve your problem, ask the Help Desk!

Help Desk

Posts to the Boost Developers mailing list with a subject tag of [GitHelp] signal a request for help with Git, GitHub, modular Boost or related topics. Several Boosters have volunteered to keep an eye out for these messages, and provide timely answers. Of course anyone who can help should jump right in with a response.

How is this different from any other developer list posting?

• Newbie and naive questions are encouraged, even if they are about 3rd party stuff like Git, TortoiseGit, or GitHub.
• It alerts responders that answers to specific problems are needed, not discussions of abstractions.

Rationale for a help desk

Documentation aids developers moving to Git and modular Boost. Beyond documentation, simply asking questions via search engine works particularly well for Git. There is a vast amount of Git material available on the web, including some excellent ​videos.

But documentation, web searches, and YouTube videos are not enough. Learning Git can be daunting - Git has more surface area than Subversion and modularizing Boost also introduces new and sometimes complex ideas. It isn't obvious at first why some operations need to be done in a certain sequence or in a certain way or why they even need to be done at all. Two or three developers at C++Now mentioned that they became discouraged when they inadvertently got painted into a Git corner and couldn't find a way out. And even experienced Git uses occasionally run into something they need human help with. A virtual help desk manned by real people aims to fill that need!