LWG Reaction: Smart pointers

From: Beman Dawes (bdawes_at_[hidden])
Date: 2001-11-06 11:43:39

Various Boost libraries were proposed to the C++ standards committee's 
Library Working Group (LWG) at the Redmond meeting for inclusion in the 
upcoming Library Technical Report (TR). What follows is my recollection of 
the reaction by the LWG to the Smart Pointer proposal.

* No one questioned the need for additional smart pointers in the standard 
library, or questioned their usefulness.  That might happen later, but it 
wasn't an issue at this meeting.

* Much of the discussion revolved around the differences between Boost's 
simple pre-configured smart pointers and highly configurable smart pointers 
Andrei Alexandrescu's Loki policy driven smart pointer.

Some of the people in the room weren't familiar with the Boost smart 
pointers, some weren't familiar with the Loki smart pointer class, or the 
idea of policy classes, and some weren't familiar with either Boost or 
Loki.

The discussion sidetracked into language extensions, particularly typedef 
templates, and named template parameter arguments.

With only a half-hour late in the day allotted for smart pointer 
discussion, I didn't do a good job presenting.  It sounded too much like 
Boost smart pointers versus Loki smart pointers, and that wasn't my intent.

I had a private conversation with Andrei afterwards, and he and I are in 
general agreement on a vision for standard library smart pointers.  I'll 
post a separate message detailing that within the next few days.

--Beman