[boost] Pure Abstraction Layer

From: Eric Woodruff (Eric.Woodruff_at_[hidden])
Date: 2002-08-07 11:39:21

"There is a very compelling reason to not include any pthreads or any other
headers. If anyone would like to write even the most minimalist
platform-neutral application using boost and multithreading, they should be
able to get a precompiled boost library and link it in with their project
without any other header dependencies. One should not require pthreads or
win32sdk installed on their system if they have a statically build STLport
and boost. The idea is to address the impotency of the standard library
itself, by providing something that is autonomous and complete.

Every time an abstraction layer is made, it helps remove more and more
dependencies from a project, only adding more simplicity and
maintainability.

I think the majority of users would not want to enable
#BOOST_POLLUTE_HEADER_AND_NAME_SPACE"

I'd like to hear a good argument against this... because without libraries
like threading, boost is made of only templates or other compiled-in
utilities, which make that aspect of boost an autonomous development
framework already--this is is exactly what the developer needs and efforts
should be made to keep it that way, no matter what is added to it.