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

From: Douglas Gregor (gregod_at_[hidden])
Date: 2003-08-28 16:12:40

On Thursday 28 August 2003 04:40 pm, Gregory Colvin wrote:
> I also have no objection, and much sympathy, for having a clear
> memory management policy for Boost libraries.  But again, it is a
> matter of people who care about and understand the issue doing the
> necessary work, just like everything else here at Boost.

Moreover, it's not a matter of convincing certain people that a clear memory 
management policy should be adopted by Boost and handed down for developers 
to do the work. Boost doesn't work that way. Policies always come from the 
bottom up: someone has a problem, so they fix it in the libraries that matter 
most to them. With that knowledge of _how_ to fix the problem correctly, they 
can approach other developers and say "hey, I think we should fix this 
problem in library X; here's how we did it in library Y". Eventually, most of 
the libraries will support it, and _then_ we can approve it as a Boost 
"policy" so that future libraries will follow it.

The most productive thing we could do right now would be to end this policy 
discussion. Start with smart_ptr and address *specific* documentation and 
*specific* implementation problems in this library, with resolutions specific 
to that library. Is there a library that does it well? Reference that library 
and state why it does it well, so that others may follow.

        Doug