RE: [boost] Suggestion to change a config.hpp macro

From: Aleksey Gurtovoy (alexy_at_[hidden])
Date: 2001-03-12 02:37:54

Daryle Walker wrote:
> My question is: why do we make the user explicitly add the 
> "="?  What's
> wrong with (excuse any line-wrap my e-mail client adds):

A counter question - what's wrong with '='? You either have to write ',' or
'=', and IMO '=' is much more appropriate here. 

[snip]

> Is
> there some subtle point of macro definitions that keeps this 
> from working,
> or did we make a silly oversight?  

It's not an oversight, it's the explicit choice; before I wrote the original
BOOST_MPL_STATIC_CONSTANT macro that was a prototype of the one Dave later
added to 'config.hpp', I was experimenting with both forms, and I found '='
form to be more explicit and natural. As Dave already mentioned, it matches
the "ideal" declaration of static member constant, and often it's more
readable.

> If it was an oversight, 
> can we change the
> macro to this form?  

If the only reason for the change asked is personal aesthetic preferences, I
am against it. IMO the questioned using of '=' is well justified and using
of ',' is not, so please leave it as is.

> Yes, I know that I'm asking for an 
> incompatible change,
> but the macro is only a few days old, so I don't think that 
> there's too much
> code to change. 

First, IMO there are no reasons for the change, and there are reasons
against it. Second, the macro in its final form was added to 'config.hpp'
about 4 weeks ago, and personally I've been using its prototype for more
than 2 months. For me there are more important things to do in spare time
than making quite a number of code changes that are not justified at all.

Aleksey