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

From: David Abrahams (dave_at_[hidden])
Date: 2003-08-26 21:15:18

"E. Gladyshev" <egladysh_at_[hidden]> writes:

> --- David Abrahams <dave_at_[hidden]> wrote:
>> "E. Gladyshev" <egladysh_at_[hidden]> writes:
>> 
>> > I am afraid that some of the boost libraries (as they are now) won't
>> > work for a big group of real time and embedded developers, where
>> > customization is the key.
>> 
>> Is it really (other than culturally, I mean)?  
>
> The culture is changing. :)
>
>> Are you sure that
>> there's no good general-purpose allocator which they can use?
>
> Yes, I am sure. I shipped one of my libraries to a guy who
> works on various DSP chips.  The native memory allocator
> on one of the DSP was very slow (some specific issues with
> how the DSP addresses the memory, I don't remember the details).
>
> This guy had to add his own new/delete operator to some of
> my internal classes to get about 10 times performance improvement.

None of that indicates that he couldn't have replaced the native
allocator with a fast general-purpose allocator.

> No, I really don't think that there is a hope for general purpose
> allocators.

Why not?

-- 
Dave Abrahams
Boost Consulting
www.boost-consulting.com