Re: [boost] RC_1_30_0: lexical_cast.hpp broken under Mac OS X/gcc 3.2.2

From: David Abrahams (dave_at_[hidden])
Date: 2003-03-13 07:39:55

Terje Slettebø <tslettebo_at_[hidden]> writes:

>>From: "Terje Slettebø" <tslettebo_at_[hidden]>
>
>> The new
>> version of lexical_cast is Kevlin's own, which he recently made, not my
>> proposition. I think his version is better, though, as it's much shorter
> and
>> removes duplication.
>
> Just to point out that it's the kind of duplication which is not easily
> removed; the new version works differently. The proposition used several
> overloaded function templates for the various special cases, whereas the new
> version uses a trait technique. Another advantage of the new version is that
> it doesn't require special workarounds for compilers lacking partial
> ordering of function templates, which the proposition needed.

If these are all implementation details, I guess it would've been
better to get your version working and replace the implementation with
Kevlin's when it was really ready.  If not, I'm not sure what would've
been best, but to expect to drop in a whole new implementation the day
before a release without causing major problems is clearly
unrealistic.

-- 
Dave Abrahams
Boost Consulting
www.boost-consulting.com