[boost] Re: Pure Abstraction Layer

From: Braden McDaniel (braden_at_[hidden])
Date: 2002-08-07 13:57:31

On Wed, 07 Aug 2002 08:39:21 -0400, Eric Woodruff wrote:

> "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.

I've already heard a few good arguments here, but let me try to add to the
list: the scenario you describe strikes me as pretty contrived. Why
*wouldn't* a Win32 developer have the Win32 SDK? Or a POSIX developer
pthreads?

"Dependencies are bad" seems to be an unstated assumption underlying your
argument. Well, dependencies are *not* inherently bad. Specifically, I
don't see any problem with depending on things that one can reasonably
expect to be present in the compilation environment.

Braden