Re: [boost] Interval library location

From: Beman Dawes (bdawes_at_[hidden])
Date: 2002-10-12 07:46:15

At 03:49 AM 10/12/2002, Guillaume Melquiond wrote:
 >Hi,
 >
 >Now that Boost 1.29 has been released, the Interval Library will sooner 
or
 >later be included in the main CVS. So I have a little question related to
 >that: where should the library be located?
 >
 >There were some discusions about it during the review. But I don't
 >remember that any consensus had been reached. The library is for the
 >moment located directly under 'boost/'; but it may or may not be the best
 >location (I don't have a strong opinion on this matter).
 >
 >Before answering, just remember that the current situation isn't really
 >homogeneous:
 >
 >  - rational is located under 'boost/'

Rational was an early Boost library, and the location was chosen before we 
understood how large Boost is likely to grow, and before we had a fuller 
appreciation of directory and namespace issues.

That doesn't in any way mean choices made for Rational were wrong, just 
that it probably isn't the best library to use as a role model.

 >  - quaternion and octonion are located under 'boost/math/'
 >  - uBlas is located under 'boost/numeric/'
 >
 >If the answer was to be 'boost/numeric/', I have a related question. Some
 >times ago, there was a discussion about changing 'numeric/' to
 >'numerics/'. I personally was against such a change since it would break
 >programs already relying on uBlas; and only one Boost header was slighty
 >concerned, and only with compilers lacking quality of implementation. But
 >a lot of people were favourable to this change.

IIRC, that issue turned out to be a non-problem.

 >However, uBlas has now been officially released in Boost 1.29 and it is
 >still located under 'boost/numeric/'. So more and more progams will be
 >broken by such a change. Can I expect 'boost/numeric/' to stay as it is 
or
 >not?

As far as I know, the decision to stick with "numeric" should hold for the 
foreseeable future.

 > I'm asking this question, because if the consensus is to put the
 >Interval Library in 'boost/numeric/', I would like to avoid to move it 
one
 >more time later (since it's not a small library).

You might wait a few days (particularly since some Boosters take the 
weekend off) to see if anyone comes up will a killer argument for a 
different approach, but otherwise I'd say go ahead.

--Beman