Re: [boost] Re: Re: an XML API in boost

From: William E. Kempf (wekempf_at_[hidden])
Date: 2003-06-03 10:03:54

Stefan Seefeld said:
> William E. Kempf wrote:
>
>>  What I think *is* a requirement is that any wrapper library
>> not be tied to a single backend, and I personally believe that what
>> follows from that is that the submission must have at least 2
>> referenced backends for proof of concept.
>
> Fair enough. What would you suggest me to do ? I do have a working
> wrapper around libxml2, but I don't have the time to reimplement it
> around another backend. Is this something that could be done in the
> boost cvs sandbox ?

Yes, the sandbox would probably be useful.  If you don't have the time to
make it work with another backend, but still feel that it is portable in
this manner, you might go ahead and submit any way.  I personally would be
inclined to vote no, unless I felt it was fairly obvious that the API
truly is portable to other backends with out proof in multiple
implementations, but others might not feel the same.  The other
alternative would be to ask for volunteers to do the port before
submission.

> All I wanted to do is
>
> a) find out whether there is interest into a boost XML library

Absolutely!  This has been discussed before.

> b) if the answer to a) is 'yes' get feedback as to how to get there

I think that's what we're trying to do ;).

I don't want to discourage you... in fact, I'd like to do the opposite.  I
just haven't had the time to look at what you have so far to give any
helpful criticism, other than to emphasise that Boost discourages tight
coupling to libraries other than Boost or the standard libraries.  This
doesn't mean that you have to provide a full implementation of the back
end parser as a Boost submission (though I do think that would be an
interesting submission in and of itself), only that you need to convince
people that you aren't tied to some other library.

-- 
William E. Kempf