[boost] Re: an xml-binary persistence library

From: Vladimir Prus (ghost_at_[hidden])
Date: 2003-04-17 10:08:08

Hi Robert,

Robert Ramey wrote:

> Nicola, Vladimir et.al
> 
> I submitted a serialization library for review last november.
> 
> It was rejected for inclusion in boost for a number of reasons which
> I will attempt to summarize as follows:
[...]

> b) Certain usage features
> ii) inconvenient type registration requirement
> iii) requirement to pre-register classes to be saved as pointers
> through a base class

Was it ever considered a problem. You surely have to register a class in
order to deserialize it (Java can create a class given its name, but we're
in C++).

> iv) requirement to have separt save/load code for serialization functions

I though about it just recently, and stubmled upon the issue of
const-correctness. Probably, separate save/load is OK, since I don't know
any good alternative solution.

> After addressing this, the path to addressing the main feature objections
> a and b
> became clear.  I believe that if I submit another version of my
> serialization library, it well meet all the objections listed above. I am
> currently implementing an XML archive.

Can we have a look at it? Probably, putting it to boost-sandbox is good
idea. I'm really interested to see how it applies to use case I have at
hand.

> a) better documentation.  What you have (the PDF) isn't bad. Its just that
> more will
> be requested.  Personally I'm not impressed with the "Oxygen" automatic
> documentor (or any other automatic documentor).

IMO, the biggest problem with Doxygen is the way programmers tend to use it.
Automatically generated class reference is good, but in itself it's to
low-level, and very often comments are too quick (like function name with
spaces instead of underscores).

> b) versioning at the class level

It would be nice, BTW, to have optional versioning....

- Volodya