Re: [boost] Re: safe_bool alternative?

From: Daryle Walker (darylew_at_[hidden])
Date: 2003-11-28 21:06:47

On 11/27/03 2:27 PM, "Sam Partington" <sam.partington_at_[hidden]> wrote:

>> OK, you are right. We have bool_testable in CVS, so we are discussing whether
>> or not it should be removed (and probably replaced by a good explanation of
>> Peter's idiom) or if it should be officially released in 1.31.0. I think it
>> should be removed, I would just like to make sure that we agree on it. If I
>> find some time at the weekend, I'll try to write some appropriate docs and
>> prepare the patch to remove bool_testable. Even if we want bool_testable
>> later, we can still add it in 1.32.0.
> 
> Wait, how did we get here when we haven't even properly discussed the
> alternatives.  

If we feel that what we currently have is unacceptable, it should be removed
immediately before it ever gets released publicly.  The existence of
alternatives does _not_ matter in this case.

> I have posted another implementation in the thread "Another safe-bool
> alternative", which I believe meets the criteria required, and its not been
> commented on.  And yet here we are discussing removing it completely?

It seems that the whole idea of a safe-bool library needs to be thought
over.  We are close to a new release, so I wouldn't want any half-baked
ideas in the archive.  Even if we remove what code is currently there, we
won't (IMO) just place in an alternative.  We're less than a month away from
release, so any potential alternative would be an untested code addition and
must be locked out until the following release.

(You might think your implementation is hot, but there may be some gotcha
you never considered in there.  It would be bad to find it the day before
[or worse, the day after] a release.)

-- 
Daryle Walker
Mac, Internet, and Video Game Junkie
darylew AT hotmail DOT com