Re: [boost] mobile/embedded boost

From: David Abrahams (david.abrahams_at_[hidden])
Date: 2001-08-29 13:05:49

----- Original Message -----
From: "John Maddock" <John_Maddock_at_[hidden]>
To: "boost" <boost_at_[hidden]>
Sent: Wednesday, August 29, 2001 7:29 AM
Subject: [boost] mobile/embedded boost

> Folks,
>
> Up until now, I have had the impression that boost wasn't interested in
> supporting platforms/compilers with no exception handling support, however
> I've had a couple of queries from regex users about building on WinCE
> (where I am led to understand that the compiler has no exception support).
>
> I wonder what do boost folks feel about these platforms - on the one hand
> one could argue that exception handling is far more useful on these mobile
> platforms than on desktop ones (which almost never run out of resources),
> and that therefore it's a compiler problem.

Exactly!!!

> On the other hand these are
> popular platforms, and some of boost is very appropriate here (static
> asserts, type traits based optimizations, smart_ptr etc).

Exactly. :(

> I'm not
> suggesting that the graph lib would be appropriate for say a toaster, or
> that regex might be used in a washing machine :-)

Why not? I can see it.

> but many mobile
> platforms now have multi-megabyte memories and could support even the
> larger boost libs.
>
> The main problem of course, is what does one do if the lib would normally
> throw an exception, but exceptions aren't available?  In some cases an
> assert might be appropriate, but that's not universally true.

Trying to weave "traditional" error-handling into code which now assumes
exceptions are available would kill it. I think the best you can do is to
hope that the platform has a function you can call to deal with resource
depletion, and wrap all your throws in some bottleneck routine that can be
configured for the platform.

> I don't have any answers here - or enough experience in this area to begin
> to develop an informed opinion - but I hope that some of you guys will.

Two things:

1. I did embedded development with G++.
2. I think Metrowerks is strong in this area as well
3. Are we sure that VC7 for WinCE won't support EH?

Oh, that's 3.

-Dave