Re: [boost] good book: generative programming

From: jsiek_at_[hidden]
Date: 2000-07-12 12:22:14

Beman Dawes writes:
 > *  Feature modeling looks like a powerful tool for designing libraries with 
 > lots of possible variations, such as smart pointers.  I believe feature 
 > modeling can be done with tools we have at hand; see 
 > http://www.egroups.com/files/boost/Feature+Modeling/feature_modeling.htm A 
 > follow-on mailing list post "Smart Pointer Feature Model" will try to apply 
 > these ideas.

The application to smart pointers has been lurking in the back of my
head too :)

 > *  Automatic or semi-automatic assembly looks like a powerful tool to hide 
 > the complexity implied by a library with lots of variations.  Again, smart 
 > pointers, for example.  And again, I think we have the tools at 
 > hand.  Firstly, C++ itself. C&E devote two chapters to C++ 

The MTL matrix interface is an example of this, and in fact was
inspired by a talk I had with Czarnecki.  I'm currently looking into a
similar interface for graphs, now that I'm becoming more familiar with
that design space.

 > techniques.  Secondly, it seems to me that tools we all can use like HTML 
 > are powerful enough to do   automatic configuration assembly.  These ideas 
 > will take some time to absorb.

Right, HTML can do the job, though the C++ generative interface may be
enough for our purposes. I've also read a paper about doing this with
a more specialized GUI framework, by Batory, etc. in IEEE Tran. on
Software Enginering May 2000, Vol 26 Num 5. Their approach may be
overkill, but some of the design ideas may be reusable.

 > Thanks to Jeremy for bring this important book to our attention!

You're welcome.

Cheers,

Jeremy