Re: [boost] Boost Units library preview

From: Andy Little (andy_at_[hidden])
Date: 2006-08-23 14:50:21

"Dave Steffen" <dgsteffen_at_[hidden]> wrote in message
news:17644.39259.602176.507250_at_yttrium.numerica.us...
> Greer, Joe writes:
> [...]
>
> > Also, make sure that you are solving problems that are really
> > likely to occur.  It is nice to be as absolutely type safe as
> > possible, but often that gets in the way of getting real work done
> > as well.  Just a thought.
>
> Ya know, that's a very good point, and it puts a name to that little
> nagging thing that's been bugging me during this whole discussion.
>
> What, exactly, are this library's use cases?
>
> All kinds of people want all kinds of things.  It seems to me that
> most of the discussion about these libraries - both the current one
> and the-library-recently-renamed Quan - are circular swirls of "I'd
> like it to do this" and "but then what about that".

This is merely because the use cases are potentially  pretty wide. In the review
I made it clear that I was limiting the scope of Quan to the SI unit system,
because that is the one I understand. If I resubmitted the library it could be
rejected as not being generic enough and  there are inklings from this thread
that this may be the reaction. But I don't have the time or the knowledge to
write a truly generic physical quantities library and if that is the requirement
then there isnt much point in resubmitting Quan for another review AFAICS.

> I think this is because there is not clearly stated purpose to "Unit
> Library".  What, exactly, is it used for?  What code can you not
> write that you could write with the Units Library/Quan?  What errors
> can you make now that you can't make with Units Library/Quan?
>
> Maybe these questions have been answered, and I didn't notice 'em
> going past; but based on these discussions, I'm inclined to think
> that in general, no two people agree on exactly _why_ these libraries
> are useful.

You can read about the rationale behind Quan  in the docs:

http://tinyurl.com/fowwc

regards
Andy Little