Re: [boost] Re: Re: Proposed smart_handle library

From: Gregory Colvin (gregory.colvin_at_[hidden])
Date: 2003-07-19 22:31:39

On Saturday, Jul 19, 2003, at 20:52 America/Denver, Ross Smith wrote:

> On Sunday 20 July 2003 11:46, Gregory Colvin wrote:
>> On Saturday, Jul 19, 2003, at 17:16 America/Denver, Ross Smith wrote:
>> ...
>>
>>> (Of course all of these could easily be unified into a single
>>> policy-based type; unfortunately the Powers That Be seem to have
>>> decided that policies are too complicated for us mere mortals to be
>>> trusted with.)
>>
>> There are no Powers That Be.  Boost has no policy-based smart
>> pointers because nobody has done the difficult job of proposing
>> them.
>
> Now that is simply a barefaced lie. I proposed one myself, which got
> roundly ignored, and there have been several others.

Excuse me.  By "propose" I meant a formal proposal, not just a posting.

There have been many postings and much discussion pro and con policy-
based smart pointers, but no formal proposal.  Only if such a proposal
were turned down would it be fair to say that Boost as such had made
any decision, let alone to speculate on the motivation for such a
decision.  My bet is that such a proposal would succeed, but would have
to be of very high quality to meet Boost's critical standards and do
justice to the inherent difficulty of the problem space.

I hope that someday soon someone will volunteer such a proposal, but
in the meantime, I think John's handles are a very good idea.