On splitting headers (Re:Objectionstoremovingtheoldsmartpointerclasstemplates?)

From: vesa_karvonen (vesa_karvonen_at_[hidden])
Date: 2002-01-30 15:16:04

--- In boost_at_y..., "Peter Dimov" <pdimov_at_m...> wrote:
[on splitting smart_ptr.hpp]
> Yes, this has been my intent. In my experience a translation unit
> rarely needs all four (now five) smart pointer classes.

In my experience, any header which contains the interface of more 
than one thing ends up being splitted or consumes compiling time 
unnecessarily. Boost has many headers which have more than one 
interface.

I think that it would be beneficial to make it a guideline in Boost 
to split components into headers so that every client of a header is 
expected to use all components declared in the header.

I always shiver when I need to include <algorithm> in order to use max
() or min().

See the Interface Segregation Principle:

http://www.objectmentor.com/resources/articles/Principles_and_Patterns
.PDF