[boost] Similarity between display and serialization?

From: Beman Dawes (bdawes_at_[hidden])
Date: 2003-12-16 07:48:00

There is a discussion going on now on the C++ committee's library 
reflector, summed up by Pete Becker:

 > Yes, there is a general need for displaying an ordered set (in the
 > broadest sense) of things, whether we call that set a pair, a tuple, a
 > container, a complex number, or whatever.

Discussion included ways of providing user customizable formatting for such 
display.

This strikes me as the same problem as the much discussed (on Boost) issue 
of user-customizable serialization formats.

I wonder what those who have been following Robert Ramey's serialization 
proposal closely think? Could one mechanism solve both serialization and 
display needs?

--Beman