[boost] Boost I/O Library review status

From: Ed Brey (brey_at_[hidden])
Date: 2003-03-18 09:32:12

I'd like to thank those who took time to review the update to the Boost I/O Library during the review period, which ended several days ago.  The reviewers raised important questions about the usefulness of the new portions of the library.

As review manager, I am pending my determination regarding acceptance until Daryle has had opportunity to respond to the reviewers' questions.  In particular, there are a few very important high level questions, mostly having to do with general rationale for libraries.  These questions are summarized below.

Stream-buffer-wrapping:

- Why are these facilities provided?  What are their uses?  What do they do better than the Standard Library's current classes?

Array-based streams:

- Is there a real-life application?  (If none, then the class should be made into an example or regression test.)

Manipulators:

- Why newl?  When and why does the user use newl? endl? '\n'?  Why is a third option justified?  (Presumably, much of the wisdom behind the choice can be drawn from literature that inspired the creation of newl.)

- Why not other control functions, e.g. tab?