[boost] [review] Review of Flyweight library

From: David Sankel (camior_at_[hidden])
Date: 2008-01-24 15:43:14

* What is your evaluation of the design?

It looks very well designed and I especially find the flexibility of
the policy mechanism to be very well done.

* What is your evaluation of the implementation?

I haven't looked at much code, so I have no opinion here.

* What is your evaluation of the documentation?

I found the documentation to be comprehensive and with good flow.

* What is your evaluation of the potential usefulness of the library?

In my programming career I haven't encountered a use case for this
library. That isn't to say it wouldn't be useful in other domains.

* Did you try to use the library? With what compiler?
     Did you have any problems?

Nope, didn't try it.

* How much effort did you put into your evaluation?
     A glance? A quick reading? In-depth study?

I did an in depth study of the documentation only.

* Are you knowledgeable about the problem domain?

I wasn't before I read the documentation, but I feel knowledgeable now
after going through it.

* 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.

Yes, I do.

My preference on the equality mechanism would be to make it a
configuration option via a template parameter during construction with
the default being (fw1.get()==fw1.get()) instead of
(&(fw1.get())==&(fw1.get()). The benefit would be that those who would
understand when this would fail could enable the quicker behavior
while those who don't understand could remain in blissful ignorance.

I prefer the original configuration mechanism. I think that it,
combined with the very good documentation, is good enough and further
extensions would complicate things further.

David

-- 
David Sankel
Sankel Software
www.sankelsoftware.com
585 617 4748 (Office)
585 309 2016 (Mobile)