Re: [boost] Re: FORMAL review of "Output Formatters" - results

From: Reece Dunn (msclrhd_at_[hidden])
Date: 2004-10-23 04:25:21

Bonjour!

Hubert Holin wrote:
> Somewhere in the E.U., le 22/10/2004
>       I just wanted to point out that the reason I was interested in it 
> is that I had been told (when it was in the sandbox, quite some time 
> before the review) it had the potential to help me simplify tremendously 
> my quaternion and, especially, octonion libraries, by providing a better 
> handling of input operators. So I would say (better late than never, 
> though perhaps it is now *too* late) that there actually *is* an 
> interest in input facilities.

I haven't yet removed the input facilities from the library. To me, 
these are the reasons to keep the input in the library:

[1] The library provides stream operations on STL containers, so why 
only provide output of a list/vector/...? This would mean that you'd 
need to implement the input operations using some other library, adding 
a further dependency on that library.

[2] Symmetry and completeness. I know my library during the review was 
called "Output Formatters" (I would like it to be in the 
mini/second-review as "I/O Collection Framework" or something similar), 
but not providing input would be, IMHO, an oversight.

[3] There have been people in the for input facilities camp as well as 
those against. For example, Roland Richter is using my library in 
conjunction with lexical_cast to convert between strings and containers.

Therefore, I would prefer to keep the input facilities (at least until 
the end of the mini/second-review).

I will commit the updated library once I have finished revising it, 
based on the review feedback.

Regards,
Reece