[boost] Re: string_algo Formal Review

From: Thorsten Ottosen (nesotto_at_[hidden])
Date: 2003-10-22 10:02:59

"Beman Dawes" <bdawes_at_[hidden]> wrote in message
news:4.3.2.7.2.20031022090117.03187588_at_mailhost.esva.net...
> At 03:33 AM 10/22/2003, Pavol Droba wrote:
[sip]
>  >- Second resons is syntactical. If all functions would be in one
> namespace,
>  >  there is a big probablility of name clashes. Because the majority of
>  >  arguments in the algorithms is templated, the only distintion between
>  >  different variants of the same algorithm is the number of paramters.
>  >  So putting everything into one namespace would most probably imply the
>  >  need to rename some functions.
>
> That's probably a sign that some functions need renaming anyhow. Think
> about it - if there is so little difference between two functions in the
> same namespace that overload resolution can't tell them apart, is moving
> one of them into a sub-namespace really a good idea? Sure, overload
> resolution now works, but how is the poor programmer expected to keep the
> difference straight?

I think this is a problem that we will encounter often; I've got into the
same problem with container versions of
standard algorithms. I think having two namespaces is
the second best idea. I think having two different names is an inferior
idea. The best would be to use an enable_if
mechanism to remove the ambiguity.

I haven't used the lately accepted lib, but how portable is it? If its
portable, it might be worth looking into.

regards

Thorsten