Re: Hello boosters

From: Andrei Alexandrescu (andrewalex_at_[hidden])
Date: 2000-05-30 19:11:18

--- In boost_at_[hidden], "Milutin Jovanovic" <miki_at_o...> wrote:
> Hmm, I have never faced the need for 15, let alone 20 different 
smart
> pointers. If the number is this high in some projects, then I 
agree, the
> appeal of separate implementations fades rather quickly.

Yes, 15 pointers in the same project might be the case only for 
really large ones.

My point, however, is a bit different: if you need to develop a new 
smart pointer from scratch just because you need an assert before 
dereferencing and your smart pointer library doesn't do it, that's 
not good.

So a library that indeed aims at providing useful smart pointer 
classes should provide a lot of flexibility, in addition to providing 
pre-canned implementations of the most common cases. But you never 
can predict all the cases - special allocators, custom exceptions, 
you name it.

SmartPtr makes a big effort not to let developers down when they have 
to implement a smart pointer that **only slightly** particular, as it 
most often happens. "I want a smart pointer that throws a 
PointerException if you dereference the null pointer!" The smart 
pointers of today offer only closed behavior, or a collection of 
closed behaviors. With SmartPtr you can intervene and change many 
aspects of it, while relying on the tried and true defaults in other 
aspects. You don't have to cope with all the issues at once.

Andrei