Re: 2nd: [boost] shared_ptr proposal

From: Beman Dawes (bdawes_at_[hidden])
Date: 2001-07-12 20:11:00

At 06:30 PM 7/12/2001, Christian Thäter wrote:
 >Sure i agree that there possible more efficient implementations.
 >My point was not concerning the implementation. I want to focus on the
 >semantic and if we agree on some semantic, then think about the best
 >implemetation. Actually we have the simple and efficent std::auto_ptr 
with
 >it's ownership-transistion and boost::shared_ptr whith it's lossy
 >(on reset/assign) semantic's.
 >So the question is, "Is there a need for other semantics?", like:
 >"Shall it ensure strict resource sharing which keeps track of
 >reset/assign operations for all instances of a pointer?"
 >"Shall pointer-construction have predictable timing behaviour?"
 >"Shall pointer construction never throw?"
 >
 >I believe that future C++ needs more high-level support with no
 >side-effect's in it's semantics, at least optional. Sure building smarter
 >things often involves higher cost, but on the advantage of easier use of
 >the components. So, I experimented the last days a bit with these
 >pointers, learned alot about the important points, now I implement the
 >linked_ptr and linked_array classes according to the boost/smart_ptr
 >interfaces for my own use, if anyone is intrested i can send/post/upload
 >the source.

You really should read Andrei Alexandrescu's Modern C++ Design.  He covers 
a lot of the things you are interested in, and in a most informative way.

--Beman