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From: Beman Dawes (beman_at_[hidden])
Date: 1999-07-01 11:10:35


At 10:51 PM 6/30/99 -0400, Dave Abrahams wrote:

> ...
>
>I do wonder about the following:
>
>1. why it doesn't use one of our lovely smart pointers instead of
doing the
>management itself.

Ah, yes, that would be better. The code was written last year,
before boost had the smart pointers. I will change it.

>2. why the implementation is stored as a reference. While the code
looks
>correct, reference members are a dicey proposition in general, and
hard to
>get right. I avoid them, and would like boost to set the same
example.

I'm not quite as wary of reference members as you are, but they
certainly do require care. It is a moot point here because of the
smart pointer change.

>3. whether we ought to be including code like the using-directive in
>timer.cpp which is designed to work around non-conformant
implementations.
>(I prefer to have users compile with -Dstd for this case).

In theory, I agree with you. In practice, 1) that option isn't
available to users of the current version of the most widely used
compiler, and 2) the source file involved is a very small, minor one
where the hack can easily be fixed in the future. Shipping software
often invokes uncomfortable acknowledgements of reality.

>Also, I think progress_display might be a bit too general a name. I
expected
>a (non-textual) GUI element! Perhaps text_progress_display would be
better.
>You could break out the display independent part into an abstract
base
>class, so when someone writes the boost GUI we will be able to use
reuse it.

Those seem like worthwhile points. Looking ahead, they mesh with
some comments from Sean and maybe others. A definite area for
possible improvement - I will work on it.

--Beman

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