Re: [boost] On splitting headers (Re:Objectionstoremovingtheoldsmartpointerclasstemplates?)

From: David Abrahams (david.abrahams_at_[hidden])
Date: 2002-02-06 10:40:19

----- Original Message -----
From: "vesa_karvonen" <vesa_karvonen_at_[hidden]>

> Personally I think that providing composite headers is a good thing,
> but I can think of a good reason to not provide them: The students of
> today are supposed to be the experts of tomorrow.

I have these thoughts:

C++ should be a better language than it is currently for quickly throwing
together a simple application. No, that's not what C++ is strongest at, but
IMO it's low-hanging fruit. While I agree that monolithic headers can be bad
for large software projects, there's no reason to make it harder than
neccessary to build small ones. I waste many minutes looking up the right
type_traits header for each trait I use.

On the other hand: I never waste any time looking up the MPL header I need.
I think this is an indication that the type_traits headers aren't
fine-grained enough. I'd have no problem at all with type_traits if there
were a <boost/type_traits/is_convertible.hpp> header, etc.

-Dave