Re: [boost] Re: Re: Smart pointers: One more implementation +question

From: Daniel Frey (daniel.frey_at_[hidden])
Date: 2003-02-05 10:55:47

Dave Abrahams wrote:
> 
> On Wednesday, February 05, 2003 9:32 AM [GMT+1=CET],
> Daniel Frey <daniel.frey_at_[hidden]> wrote:
> 
> > "Premature flexibility is the root of all evil"
> >
> > Stone me, Andrei :o)
> 
> I don't think it's premature.  There's certainly plenty of evidence by now
> that people want a variety of different smart pointers

I know. And I agree. Sentences like the above are provoking by their
nature, but still hold some truth. In the end, it's all a trade-off and
I am not sure how far we can extend flexibility. It has some cost (might
be smaller if template-typedefs are available) and I think it would be a
horror to create and even more to maintain a boostified version of
Andrei's PBSP. Boost is becoming a blackbox with lot's of magic inside,
PBSP might suffer the same problem. People (including me) seem to prefer
things that not only just work, but which can also be fixed if they
don't work. This is why I like open-source so much, but boost is giving
me some headaches like is_class. I was also a bit shocked when I found
out that boost's smart-pointer add ~36 bytes to my objects if I use
intrusive-counting - which is not acceptable for me. This was a
motivation to start my own little library where I can understand the
code. It helped me to understand the things I wasn't able to understand
from looking at the boost code. I haven't published it yet for several
reasons including missing documentation, missing tests for at least some
important platforms/compilers, and last but not least I'm not sure if it
would be fair to boost. OTOH, it might help others to learn more about
C++ (I learned a lot from boost, but it's getting harder with every new
release).

To sum it up: I believe boost is becoming a blackbox and that worries
me.

> I still have some questions which haven't been satisfied about how to get
> there, of course...

Andrei has done a lot of good things not just by creating them, but also
by writing a book about it.

Regards, Daniel

-- 
Daniel Frey
aixigo AG - financial training, research and technology
Schloß-Rahe-Straße 15, 52072 Aachen, Germany
fon: [phone], fax: [phone]
eMail: daniel.frey_at_[hidden], web: http://www.aixigo.de