[boost] Re: abs and swap -or- overloading vs. specialization.

From: Beman Dawes (beman_at_[hidden])
Date: 2000-01-30 12:02:51

At 07:54 AM 1/30/00 -0500, John Maddock wrote:

>>It *seems* to be correct ? How could the Standard be wrong, 
>>since it is the Truth ?
>
>Ah, as in "Carved in Stone" :-)
>
>My point was that there was a suggestion to change the standard to
allow
>overloading in std, IMO I prefer to rely on Koenig lookup and keep
>overloads in their own namespaces, but I accept that that isn't
perfect
>either - it is standard conformant though.

At the time the wording we are talking about (mostly 17.4.3.1
[lib.reserved.names] paragraph 1) was written, there were no
compilers (at least available to Library Working Group members) which
implemented namespaces, Koenig lookup, or partial specialization.
There were no implementations of the standard library.  We were
flying blind.  My memory is that there was almost no discussion.  We
just didn't have enough experience.

My guess is that these boost discussions could well be the first real
discussions by people with experience using nearly conforming
compilers and libraries.  So it would not be surprising if one or
more Defect Reports come out of this discussion.

--Beman