Re: Review Results: Base-from-Member

From: Daryle Walker (darylew_at_[hidden])
Date: 2001-08-17 18:21:46

on 8/17/01 8:58 AM, Ed Brey at edbrey_at_[hidden] wrote:

> I just took a look at your update in the files section (version 11).  I
> still have a couple concerns.  One problem is the existence of two
> first-class interfaces, one a set of classes of the form
> base_from_member_n and the other the class base_from_member.  To be
> minimal and complete the former interface should be dropped.  The only
> exception is that if there are still a significant number of compilers
> still around that chock on the latter.  Do you know of any (even MSVC6
> works here!)?  I think this would have to be pretty major before we should
> allow expanding the interface (only to have to deprecated, but still
> maintain, it later) to appease them, since the obvious workaround of just
> implementing the pattern by hand is quite reasonable.

Looking at <boost/config.hpp>, the BOOST_NO_MEMBER_TEMPLATES macro is
defined for GCC <= 2.08, Sunpro <= 5.0, and MSVC++ <= 6.

The one-constructor template classes let the developer specify the exact
type of the constructor argument(s).  The multi-constructor template class
cannot; it depends exclusively on argument lookup.  Could a compiler screw
up argument type guessing, especially for references and/or arrays?

> Likewise, the documentation should be updated accordingly.  I see getting
> these issues resolved solidly as much more important than getting this
> library into the next possible release.

-- 
Daryle Walker
Mac, Internet, and Video Game Junkie
darylew AT mac DOT com