Re: [boost] Re: logging lib, v1.3

From: Beman Dawes (bdawes_at_[hidden])
Date: 2004-10-29 11:26:24

At 09:50 AM 10/29/2004, Johan Nilsson wrote:
 >...
 >- This opinion is probably not shared with others, but I'd prefer the
 >library to be independent from the Boost Thread library. The dependency
 >feels kind of the wrong way around.

Ouch! Johan's other comments are so positive, that I was starting to get 
excited about the library. And most of his negative comments are things I 
don't care a lot about or are issues that can probably be addressed later.

But a dependency on any thread library is likely to throw cold water on my 
use. Here are the likely scenarios:

* Light-duty uses in light-duty non-multithreaded programs, where 
introducing a threading dependency seems far too heavy-weight for the apps. 
You (actually, the docs) could convince me otherwise, but I'm guessing that 
for this kind of casual use in general you will scare off potential users 
with a threading dependency.

* Heavy-duty industrial uses. I'm not adverse personally to a threading 
library dependency for these apps (which are sold as libraries); , but I'd 
have to get permission from managers who will be very concerned about use 
of a threading library clashing with customer's use of other threading 
libraries. Whether these concerns are valid or not is almost beside the 
point; it will be a hassle.

These concerns can be overcome, but they would slow adoption of the logging 
library. Thus if you can eliminate them it would speed acceptance. Note 
that I'm not suggesting that all uses of the library have to eliminate the 
threading dependency, but that it would be nice if there was a basic subset 
of features that could be used without threading concerns.

HTH,

--Beman