[boost] Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: what happened to allocators in boost?

From: Andreas Huber (ah2003_at_[hidden])
Date: 2003-08-26 15:42:43

Peter Dimov wrote:
[snip]
>> I see your point but what is the alternative? Forcing people to
>> replace global new/delete?
>
> In a word, yes. Although replacing global new/delete is forced by the
> system allocator being not up to the task and not by us.
>
> I understand that for some applications region-based memory
> management can
> be a big performance win. I also understand that some (uncommon in my
> experience) cases can't be supported by a global allocator (when two
> independent regions are active at once, in a single thread.) But I'm
> not
> sure that Allocators (as spelled in the standard) are the answer, and
> I'm entertaining the thought that in the long term this kind of
> customization harms the C++ community. Maybe not one's particular
> corner of the community, but the community as a whole.

I agree but we're stuck with a hen/egg problem, as you have already pointed
out. Today, quite a few system allocators are not up to the task, so people
absolutely need customization. For cross-platform stuff this is true until
the very last platform has come around, which might be never :(. Moreover,
for some platforms compiler implementers can always argue that they cannot
satisfy most of the crowd anyway, so customization and the sub-standard
allocators will remain.

E.g. I hope to convince some of the embedded systems/real-time crowd to use
the fsm lib I'm currently implementing. I would bet that even in 10 years
most of them wouldn't even consider using it unless they were able to
totally control how memory is allocated...

Regards,

Andreas