Re: Thoughts on Format

From: bill_kempf (williamkempf_at_[hidden])
Date: 2002-01-31 10:06:34

--- In boost_at_y..., Mickaël Pointier <mpointie_at_e...> wrote:
> >> (the only two arguments
> >> I've ever heard against this was that "printf" was more 
intuitive,
> >> which is true only for old C coders, and that the manipulator
> >> approach was very verbose, but I could care less about that).
> 
> > I'll second this!
> >
> > I am not an old-school C coder, never had to learn printf and 
rigoroulsy avoid having anything to do with it.  My brief dealings
> found it far from intuitive and visually dense so I couldn't see 
the wood for the trees.
> >
> > I'm also against *unnecessary* verbosity, and some of the 
iostream stuff may be too far the other way but at least it is clear.
> When it comes to trade-offs, I'll take clarity over terseness!
> >
> > As someone who is observing the thread, rather than 
participating, my observation is that I quite liked the [] syntax, 
and I would
> likely investigate any library based on that just for 
the 'rightness' of the feel.  I will avoid any library based on 
printf-style
> syntax.  I'm not yet sure if this library is targetted at me to 
begin with though, so take these last comments with a pinch of salt!
> 
> Well, all oppinions are in the nature. Mine is opposite to yours.
> 
> Personaly I appreciate the printf syntax because all the formating 
stuff is
> visualy located around the thing you want to format, and it has no 
consequence
> on the remaining of the things to be formated.
> I really hate the c++ stream way of setting precision, width, 
whatever else,
> because it's more a kind of state machine that keep settings until 
they are
> changed.

You can define your own manipulators to "fix" this.

Bill Kempf