Re: [boost] Re: generic polyvalent input/output ['pickle']

From: Jens Maurer (Jens.Maurer_at_[hidden])
Date: 2000-11-19 14:46:19

Beman Dawes wrote:
> But Jens, what about the big picture?  Are you convinced your overall
> approach is better that XLT?  Do you want to continue developing yours?

I believe there is not much difference in the overall approach.  I wanted
to get my update out so I don't sit on a bunch of changes.  To have some
fun, I also wanted to see how a unified describe() for C-style structs
would look like.  Look at the cute operator-overloading syntax
(proposals for a better operator than & accepted)  :-)

The problem with XLT at the moment is that it seems to provide the
portable binary representation (GIOP, XDR), but its support for a text
format is lacking.  Additionally, I can use a mem_buffer, but I
cannot use iostreams.

As far as I understand it, these items would be main obstacles for
Beman's usage scenario.

> (I'm personally trying to keep my mind open until I understand XLT better
> than I do now.  Obviously I'm biased toward your approach due to
> familiarity, but I want to give XLT at least a chance and not reject it
> just because Not Invented Here.)

This is the same with me:  I am obviously biased as well :-)

Advantages of XLT are:
 - Handles pointers to objects (also has an option for handling
circular data structures)
 - Handles fixed-sized C-style arrays

The disadvantages of both approaches are that you need lots of
template instantiation depth and it takes quite a while to
compile.

To make my text support really flexible enough for XML or HTML
would need a lot more effort in both approaches, though.

Jens Maurer