Re: [boost] Re: Include only one Boost file

From: David Abrahams (david.abrahams_at_[hidden])
Date: 2002-06-26 18:40:53

From: "Matthew Wilson" <mwilson_at_[hidden]>

> Developers don't want to be bothered with carefully maintaining minimal
> dependencies. Are you serious? Are they?
>
> Stunning.

First of all, let me say as a moderator that the tone of this post is
entirely inappropriate for Boost. We try to maintain a collegial atmosphere
here; see the section of http://www.boost.org/more/discussion_policy.htm on
Culture for more information.

Secondly, yes, I'm serious. The kind of minimal dependencies being asked
about would entail intrusive measures into existing library components such
as Boost.Config, to eliminate all definitions not relevant to the actual
problem being solved by any library that uses Boost.Config. This would be
an enormous drain of volunteer resources devoted to library maintenance and
development, and IMO would effectively undermine Boost.Config's identity as
a component. Even a less-extreme example poses problems: if I need to use a
template from the type traits library, I don't have the time to exercise
constant vigilance about what John Maddock might have needed to #include to
get it to work right... and I'd prefer that John re-use some component from
within boost than to incur the maintenance problems that arise due to
code/functionality duplication.

-Dave